article_text
stringlengths 294
32.8k
⌀ | topic
stringlengths 3
42
|
|---|---|
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge high-fives teammates after beating Tampa Bay, Monday, June 20, 2022 in St Petersburg, Fla.Photo by Tyler Schank/Getty Images A guy shouldn’t always start a column with a question, but this is key. Who likes the Yankees?I’ll answer. Front-runners, tourists, New Yorkers. Bah, humbug to all of them. Sadly, that’s the kind of mood a fellow finds himself in when he sees the Yankees, once again, atop the American League East, while the Cubs and White Sox muddle about in their respective divisions, both with losing records. Going into Monday, the Yankees, irritatingly, had the best record in baseball at 49-17. True, there’s always a Chicago-New York snarky thing. The second city and all that. But this is more about just trying to be all that you can be, the old slogan that pretty much fits everybody and everything. Are Chicago’s baseball teams trying to be all they can be? Hardly. Certainly not when you compare them to the Yankees, whom, we’ll acknowledge once more, we don’t like. Why don’t we? Many reasons, the late George Steinbrenner and the lucky trade for Babe Ruth 102 years ago being but two. It’s true the Yankees have more money than Fort Knox and reside in the largest city in the United States. But Chicago is pretty big, and there is money here, too. Just ask Jerry Reinsdorf and the Ricketts family. But the Cubs were 16 games below .500 and 12 games out of first in the National League Central heading into Monday. The Sox were 31-33 and five games out of first in the AL Central. The Cubs are rebuilding, and the Sox are, well, I’m not really sure. The point is, whatever both teams are doing, there is no reason to be also-rans, mere observers, while doing it. Consider those Yankees. They have not had a losing season in 30 years. Even their rebuilds have some integrity. In the last half-century, the Yankees have finished first in their division 20 times and won seven World Series. They haven’t had great postseason success recently, but they always try to get somewhere. The Cubs, on the other hand, have had only 16 winning seasons in 50 years and have won their division only eight times. Of course, they did get that World Series title in 2016, their only one in the last 113 years. But what has happened since 2016? Somehow a potential dynasty turned into a Ming vase on a concrete floor. Since 2016, the Cubs are 4-9 in postseason play, 1-4 in their lone NL Championship Series, 0-3 in wild-card rounds. The Sox, remember, won the World Series in 2005. Could that be almost a generation ago? It could. After that 2005 championship, there has been a dreaded rebuild or two (or three?) and not much else. In the last half-century, counting this partial year, the Sox have but 21 winning seasons. They’ve had seven losing seasons in the last decade. It’s like they go one step forward, 10 steps back. It feels painful to be a Chicago baseball fan, I guess is what I’m saying. And seeing the Yankees always up there makes it worse. The Cubs, wrote New York Times columnist Tyler Kepner, are full of ‘‘placeholders.’’ He refined his observation to this memorable metaphor: The Cubs are ‘‘a roster of mobile trailers keeping up day-to-day operations at a construction site.’’ Excellent! But what is the hole they are digging? That is the question. Nor is it just the big-city/big-revenue Yankees (or annoyingly successful Dodgers: 14 winning seasons in the last 15) whose effort makes our Chicago teams seem like such losers. Ponder the Cardinals. St. Louis proper is close to falling below 300,000 in population. That’s not a whole lot bigger than Fort Wayne, Indiana. Yet the Cardinals carry on as if they’re a massive juggernaut. They’ve had 37 winning seasons in the last 50, and they’ve played in seven World Series in that time, winning three. Most notably, they haven’t had a losing season in 15 years. Naturally, they’re right there atop the NL Central. There are rebuilds, and we all know how that works. Just hold your nose while your team tanks, and — voila! — in a few years you’ll have a winner. Maybe. But it’s the teams that don’t sink into the unwatchable muck while reloading for the future that have a different philosophy than the Cubs or Sox. Call it management swagger. Owners with attitude. Call it a New York state of mind. | Baseball |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! If you've ever watched the National Symphony Orchestra perform, you can't help but notice Jauvon Gilliam. He is after all, the man whose thunderous beats on the taut skins of his beloved timpani set the rhythm for one of the premier orchestral bodies in the world — and it’s been that way for more than a dozen years.Not bad for a kid from Gary, Indiana, whose father carefully guided him into a life of music — and for very good reason.JUNETEENTH: WHAT IS IT AND WHY DO WE CELEBRATE IT?"My dad had me in music when I was a little kid to keep me safe and to keep me away from some of the other stuff that was around when I was growing up," he told Fox News. "And I think it just kind of stuck." The National Symphony Orchestra's principal timpanist Jauvon Gilliam is pictured on stage at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2010, shortly after he was named to his position. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)Indeed, it stuck all right — stuck like new sneakers on hot, fresh asphalt during an Indiana summer.Gilliam's skill as a concert pianist launched him into a true musical odyssey, one that would take him to Butler University in Indianapolis on a music scholarship and to performances all over the world. But as great as that was, once he took up the timpani, he knew he'd found his true orchestral home."They can detach from everything else that they're doing to make the world a better place." Unsurprisingly, Gilliam excelled as ever. He was named principal timpanist of the National Symphony Orchestra in 2009 at age 29. Since then, he's played for just about every kind of lawmaker you can think of, not to mention presidents and leaders from around the globe. The National Symphony Orchestra's principal timpanist Jauvon Gilliam is pictured on stage at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2010. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)"They come here for two-and-a-half hours, they can turn their phone off, they can detach from everything else that they're doing to make the world a better place," he said.Making the world a better place is what drives Gilliam. When he's not playing with the NSO, or working around the spectacular Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Gilliam is most likely to be at the University of Maryland. The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts is shown at dusk across the Potomac in Georgetown. "It's about paying it forward," Gilliam told Fox News. There, he's opened a recording studio and instrument rental company to support aspiring artists of all backgrounds. He freely admits that central to his personal mission to inspire is cultivating the work of other Black artists."I think for me, it's about paying it forward," he said. "It's about making sure that people that look like me and you have the opportunities that they might not have known that they had otherwise.""It's important for us to make sure that everybody is aware of where we've come from and where we're trying to go." Back at the Kennedy Center, Gilliam's signature brand of timpani sticks seem as much a reflection of his style as it does his discipline. His is a strong desire to connect what he calls "the outside world" to his world — where the only thing that really matters is the music.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER"It's important for us to make sure that everybody is aware of where we've come from and where we're trying to go," he said.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"As long as we can communicate and connect with each other, I think that's the main impetus to get us to move forward."And that, it would seem, is a beat that anyone can drum to today. Kevin Corke currently serves as an FNC correspondent based in Washington, DC. He joined the network in 2014. In addition, Corke serves as a recurring guest-anchor on FOX News @ Night (weeknights from 11:00 PM/ET - 12:00 AM/ET). | Music |
By Mark SavageBBC Music CorrespondentImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Beyoncé previously dipped her toes into house music with the song Blow, from her self-titled album in 2013"I'm on that new vibration," sings Beyoncé on her new single, Break My Soul. "I'm buildin' my own foundation."The foundation of her new sound actually dates back to the diva house movement of the 1990s, with its deep grooves, soaring melodies and insistent four-four beats.She even shares the writing credits with Allen George and Fred McFarlane, composers of the timeless house classic Show Me Love for Robin S. Weirdly, Break My Soul neither samples nor quotes their song. It simply uses the same bass sound, a preset on the infamous Korg M1 keyboard. But Beyoncé has always been careful to acknowledge the black creators who have influenced her. Sending a few royalty cheques to the creators of Show Me Love (or to their family in the case of McFarlane. who died in 2016) is a very Beyoncé gesture.Now that @beyonce just dropped her new single watch how folks give the new @Drake album another listen. It’s culture a shift house music ,soulful house & dance 💃🏽 🕺🏾 is the wave now hate it or love. 🙌🏾— THE LOVE KING (@Raheem_DeVaughn) June 21, 2022
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterThe release of Break My Soul comes just a couple of days after Drake's similarly club-inspired new album, Honestly, Nevermind.Tracks like Falling Back and Massive also draw on the hypnotic bass and chunky piano chords of 90s house, with Drake enlisting an all-star cast of house and electronic music producers like Gordo, Rampa, Black Coffee and Alex Lustig.The question is, why now?Part of the answer is, almost predictably, the pandemic. Like Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa before them, Drake and Beyoncé are eulogising the redemptive power of dance in an unrecognisable world. "I just quit my job... they work me so damn hard," mutters Beyoncé in her lowest register, referencing the Great Resignation. A prominent sample of New Orleans bounce musician Big Freedia then urges listeners to "release the stress" and "release your mind" before a gospel choir turns up for the song's ecstatic climax."With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again," Beyoncé said in a recent interview about her forthcoming album. "I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible."Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Drake's new album also touches on emerging genres like Baltimore club, ballroom and AmapianoDrake's album is more concerned with relationships (guess what everyone, he's a bit sad about them) but even he promises to "throw a party for my day ones", while bragging "I'm a night owl, this a different mode".There are dozens of different genres that Drizzy and Queen Bey could have chosen to soundtrack their dancefloor escapades. But both are smart enough to know the extra cultural weight that house carries.It emerged in a Chicago venue called The Warehouse, which initially operated as a members-only club almost exclusively frequented by black and Latin-American gay men. "It wasn't meant for straight people at all," recalled house pioneer Jesse Saunders last year. "We're talking the '70s. When you're young, Black, Latino and gay, you have no place in Chicago, because Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the country, if not the world. Nobody wants you in their club. Nobody wants you partying. So they built their own... just for gay men, not even gay women."The club's star DJ was Frankie Knuckles, who would use a reel-to-reel tape to create loops and "pause button remixes" of his favourite disco tracks, making them last a little longer.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Frankie Knuckles is widely regarded as the godfather of house musicIn 1983, he acquired a drum machine to enhance his mixes - and that combination of stripped-back, insistent beats with elements of cult disco classics defined the house sound.The music's sexuality was "blunt" and "blatant", wrote Bob Stanley in his book Yeah Yeah Yeah: A History of pop music. "That rush to orgasm was clear in its ebbs, flows and jump cuts between dark chords and uplifting piano breaks."Unlike disco, this wasn't music made by musicians, it was made by clubbers for clubbers."By the late '80s, it had broken out of underground clubs and made its way onto the pop charts, helped by artists like Inner City, the Pet Shop Boys and Madonna - whose house anthem Vogue became a worldwide number one in 1990.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Big Freedia said she was "honoured" to be included on Beyoncé's new singleThe music's origins in black and queer spaces has often been overlooked. But Beyoncé makes it explicit in Break My Soul, embellishing her familiar theme of self-empowerment with a rap from Big Freedia, who has been a fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ rights after experiencing homophobia in the early days of her career."We weren't treated equally, being that we were gay," she told Billboard magazine last year. "We were working for chump change. Over time, things started to change, but in the beginning, it was not so easy. It was not so accepting."People were in shock that they had these gay artists out in New Orleans that's doing bounce music and making the girls shake all over."By building a bridge to black and queer subcultures, and releasing their music during Pride month, Beyoncé and Drake are doing more than just plundering their record collections for ideas. And if their new records encourage people to check out Cece Rogers' Someday, or Marshall Jefferson's Move Your Body, or The Nightwriters' Let The Music Use You - well, that can only be a good thing.Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]. | Music |
Kraven Marvel Sony, in its quest to continue to make the most absolutely baffling superhero movies possible, is making some major changes to Kraven the Hunter, the Spider-Man villain that’s the focus of its next major comic book outing. We are in the post-Morbius era, but we could be barreling toward a fresh new batch of memes with Kraven. Variety, speaking with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays Kraven, he describes the character as “an animal lover and protector of the natural world.” I’m sorry, an animal lover. A protector of the natural world? Are you sure you don’t mean “murderer” and “pillager”? No, apparently not. Because Sony know that the way you can make anyone instantly hated is showing them in a photo with some sort or poor murdered elephant or jaguar or tiger, they figured maybe it was not great to base a movie around a guy who is quite literally known for doing just that. Okay well they did figure it was good to base a movie around him, but just…change him completely. Kraven the Hunter in the comics is…a hunter. He is known for hunting the most dangerous game in the world and his entire costume is made out of animal skins, including a lion’s face split in half. HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 08: Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Godzilla' ... [+] at Dolby Theatre on May 8, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic) FilmMagic This new idea for the movie version sounds like they’re turning Kraven into some sort of Poison Ivy-but-with-animals, and I can almost guarantee you the cold open of this movie is going to be like, Kraven hunting down a bunch of poachers in the African safari somewhere before they can hunt endangered animals. The idea being that he’s still a hunter just…a hunter of hunters. This continues Sony’s plan of attempting to turn various Spider-Man villains into anti-heroes, which they’ve already attempted successfully with Venom and less so with Morbius, on their way to assembling the Sinister Six in a universe that still does not seem to have its own Spider-Man. I have very, very little doubt that if Jared Leto’s Morbius was a bomb, Aaron Taylor Johnson, who is an even less-known star, will not be able to make this anti-Kraven Kraven some sort of big box office success. I suppose I could be wrong, but Venom really seems like a fluke at this point, and Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man plans are getting increasingly bizarre as time goes on. This isn’t even the weirdest concept, as that would be a movie they’re doing for El Muerto, a villain who appears in the entire history of Spider-man comics for like, twelve pages. We’ll see how Kraven the Animal Lover goes here, but man, Sony, you’re wild. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy. | Movies |
Glastonbury is upon us and the weather forecasts are in. There’s good news and there’s bad news.Festivalgoers will be reaching for the suncream and then the wellies as a sunny start gives way to heavy showers just as the main acts take to the stages on Friday.Helen Caughey, the Met Office’s deputy chief meteorologist, said the first of the 200,000 people arriving at the site would enjoy plenty of sunshine and highs of 26C or 27C on Wednesday and Thursday.But the forecast from Friday onwards looks muddy. “You should plan for both sunhats and raincoats for this year’s festival,” Caughey said.Heavy showers and thunderstorms are expected near Worthy Farm, in rural Somerset, on Friday and Saturday, potentially providing a dramatic, if rather soggy, backdrop to the headline sets of Billie Eilish and Paul McCartney.The downpours are not expected to last long but some surface water may accumulate, Caughey said. Surface water, in Glasto land, could well mean knee-deep mudbaths.Caughey added: “Sunday is expected to be mostly dry and bright at first but with showers once again developing through the morning, some of which could be heavy, and possibly thundery. The unsettled pattern is expected to continue to dominate into the start of next week.”Anyone who has attended Glastonbury – or lived in Britain – knows to expect sunshine and showers on the same day at this time of year.But Glastonbury sometimes seems to exist in its own curious microclimate, with freak events like electrical storms causing chaos in recent years.The mixed forecast will almost certainly not dampen enthusiasm for the return of Glastonbury after its two-year Covid-19 hiatus. Gates open at 8am on Wednesday, come rain or shine. | Festivals |
Reality TV star Blac Chyna has reached a settlement agreement ahead of what would have been a second trial against the Kardashian family.Chyna had accused her former fiance Rob Kardashian of maliciously sharing nude photographs of her in 2017 after their relationship ended.
Selection of jurors had been set to begin on Monday ahead of a trial - however, according to court documents seen by the PA news agency, the parties have now informed the judge they have agreed to a settlement. Image: Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna pictured in 2016. Pic: John Misa/MediaPunch/IPX It comes following a defamation trial between Chyna and the Kardashians earlier in 2022.Chyna, whose legal name is Angela White, claimed that Rob Kardashian's mother Kris Jenner and three of his famous sisters - Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner - had defamed her as violent and unstable, and allegedly persuaded producers and executives to cancel her reality show, Rob & Chyna. Chyna had sued for $108m (£77m) but the Kardashians, who all testified during the hearing, won the case - and she was awarded zero damages.
Despite jurors deciding that the Kardashians did act in bad faith in their conversations about the couple's troubles with producers of Rob & Chyna and executives from the E! network, which aired the series, they also found that this had no substantial effect on Chyna's contract or the fate of the show. Image: (L-R) Khloe Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, and Kris Jenner sketched in court during the earlier defamation trial Rob Kardashian, who has a daughter with Chyna, was not a defendant in that trial but gave evidence, as did the Kardashian women.Chyna had initially filed one lawsuit against the entire family, but the judge ruled the allegations against Rob Kardashian - which also included assault accusations - should be tried separately.After the verdict in the first trial, lawyers for the Kardashian and Jenner family "expressed appreciation" for the jury and said they were "thankful for the steady hand" of Judge Gregory Alarcon."The jury sent a clear message to Ms White and her lawyer - I hope they are listening," the attorneys said in a statement. "Justice has prevailed."Only Rob and Kris Kardashian had been expected to testify at the second trial, had it gone ahead. | Celebrity |
Joao Paulo, No. 6 of the Seattle Sounders, celebrates his goal with Alex Roldan, No. 16 of the ... [+] Seattle Sounders, during a game between Seattle Sounders FC and Minnesota United FC at Allianz Field on April 2, 2022, in St Paul, Minnesota. Jeremy Olson/ISI Photos/Getty Images A stake of 3% to 5% in the Seattle Sounders was sold in an unannounced deal a couple of months ago, valuing the MLS team at $680 million, Forbes has learned from a person with knowledge of the deal who did not name the buyer. The Sounders are among the best teams in the league, having won the MLS Cup in 2016 and 2019. They also boast one of the most rabid fan bases in MLS, placing second in the league in attendance and Twitter followers. Spokespersons for the Sounders and MLS would not comment on the deal. Prior to last week’s announcement of a new streaming partnership between Major League Soccer and Apple AAPL , investors were bidding up the values of MLS teams. The valuation for the Sounders is the fourth-highest valuation for a limited partner stake of which Forbes is aware. Last September, rapper Yo Gotti purchased a minority stake in D.C. United at a roughly $730 million valuation, according to Sportico. A few months prior to the Gotti deal, Sportico also reported that Houston Texans running back Mark Ingram II bought a minority stake in the same team in a deal that valued D.C. United at $710 million. And in March 2020, a 10% piece of Los Angeles FC was reportedly acquired in a deal by the controlling owners that valued the franchise at more than $700 million. The $680 million price for the Sounders makes sense. LP stakes typically go for a discount because the investor has no say in how the team is run. In its most recent MLS valuations last July, Sportico valued the Sounders at $705 million, fourth-highest in the league. The $680 million LP valuation for the Sounders would seemingly push the controlling interest valuation north of $800 million. (In Forbes’ last list of MLS valuations, in November 2019, the Sounders were listed at $405 million.) The Sounders deal will be a good benchmark to use when calibrating the impact the league’s new deal with Apple will have on subsequent team valuations. As one MLS team owner put it to Forbes, “the Sounders deal closed before the Apple streaming deal was known, so I will be very interested to see what happens when the next MLS team is sold.” | Soccer |
Adrián Fierro By Lucas Villa Blue Rojo is leaving a colorful mark on Latin pop music. As the Mexican-American singer continues to take the genre to new places by fusing seemingly disparate elements of electronic and punk with reggaeton, he also lyrically pushes boundaries as an openly gay musician. Seeking to find himself after a few years of fleeting fame, Blue's authenticity as an artist led him to sign with Universal Music Group last year. After releasing an album about being in love with a straight man, he continues to stay true to himself with his latest single “Soy Tu Payaso Papi 3000.” "It's a dream to sing about gay love," Blue tells MTV over Zoom from his home in Mexico City. "It's so hot. It's super passionate. It makes me feel alive. It's what I am. I'm singing about what I am." Before becoming one of Mexico's freshest new voices, Blue Rojo was born Santiago Ogarrio in San Diego, California. As a child, he grew up in the border town of Tijuana, where he was able to embrace the pop culture of both the United States. and Mexico. Blue cites MTV's TRL as the foundation of his musical influences. "I was super inspired by MTV, the whole top 10 countdown," he recalls with a smile. "I watched it all the time." Among his favorite artists were Britney Spears, Evanescence, Avril Lavigne, and Korn. On the Latin side, he was listening to the campy group Kabah, Spanish pop star Belinda, and electro-pop trio Belanova. "I love all the pop glam of what a pop artist is," he says. "It's beautiful and it's plastic-y, and I like it." Blue moved to Mexico City with his family at age 11, and he later found his first opportunity to make his dreams of becoming a musician come true. After The Voice became a ratings juggernaut in 2011, international franchises sprang up around the world, including in Mexico. In 2013, he tried out for La Voz. For his first unaired audition, he says the producers forced him to sing Juanes's "Me Enamora," which resulted in zero celebrity coaches selecting him for their team. When Blue was invited back to audition again three days later, he told them, "Sure, but I'm going to pick my song." His acoustic version of Don Omar's reggaeton classic "Salio El Sol" won over Puerto Rican duo Wisin y Yandel. Despite making it far in the competition and enjoying the experience, Blue says he couldn't really be who he was while appearing on television. "I was already out with my family but I was still kind of scared of saying it on the show," he adds. Blue also found that his initial fame, boosted by La Voz, had to do more with being a recognizable face on TV than with his actual talent. He left Mexico City for Guadalajara after a friend invited him out there. "I got kind of depressed," Blue admits. "It was like a shock for who I am. I started doing an introspection with myself to start to know who I actually am and what I want to say. That's where I started my artistic creation of Blue Rojo." With a fresh perspective from spending a year in Guadalajara, he returned to Mexico City to make Blue Rojo a reality. "I'm this misunderstood, super mystical gay boy in my fantasy," he says about the concept behind his moniker. (The Spanglish name reflects his bicultural influences from Mexico and the U.S.) In 2019, Blue started independently releasing music that delved into queer identity through euphoric electro-pop tracks like "Niñaboy" and "Bebé." The reggaeton-infused "Soy Tu Payaso Papi" was his most emblematic video as he turned into a clown over his crush on a straight man. "I want to be free with this project," Blue says. "I love homosexuality. I think it's a beautiful thing. In every sense, I think everyone has to love who they are. I love that and I want to preserve that for myself because life is short." Adrián Fierro"Soy Tu Payaso Papi" caught the attention of Mexico City-based A&R Diego Urdaneta, who assembled a team of musicians like Venezuela's Ulises Hadjis and the Dominican Republic's Diego Raposo to work with Blue on his debut album, Solitario. Across the 12 tracks, Blue further delves into the pain and rejection of his unrequited queer crush on this straight guy. Urdaneta shopped the album around with different labels before Universal signed Blue. "You have to trust your instinct as much as you can," Blue says about making the album. "You have to believe in yourself. You gotta risk it also. I felt really good that they liked the album. That was a dream." In November 2021, Universal released Blue's Solitario just as the label execs heard it before they signed him. His operatic voice soars across every genre that he's blended into the LP. On "Después de la Pandemia Volví a Ser Católiko," Blue reconciles his religious upbringing with a magnetic crush. Through the surging electronica, he cries out to God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary for guidance. In the swaggering reggaeton standout "Eslabón de Bonbón," Blue is feeling himself as a "puto," his reclamation of the Spanish-language queer slur. "I like the word and I always want to use it," Blue says. "I felt like I was on fire when I was singing that song, like a volcano." Earlier this year, Blue lived out one of his high school fantasies through his music video for "No Te Kiero Olvidar." On the soccer field, he sings the synthpop anthem with eyes for the team captain. After the two get cozy, they share a kiss on screen. "It was very cathartic," Blue says. "It was also a process of healing. In school, I was very shy and kept to myself. I was very depressed, so doing this makes me let it go. Now I know I put it out there. I expressed what I felt." In addition to releasing a revamped "Soy Tu Payaso Papi 3000" this month, Blue previewed his next single “La Foto x Whatsapp,” due out in July. In the dembow-driven dance track, he sings about discovering through Whatsapp that the guy he's seeing has a girlfriend. "This song is more fun," Blue says. "I like the pop drama." Toward the end, a sample of Belanova's "Por Ti" emerges. "I was one of those kids listening to Belanova, and now having them on my song, it's super beautiful," he adds. In the forthcoming futuristic music video, Blue rides around the city holding onto a motorcyclist. A reference to Rosalía’s Motomami, perhaps? He says with a laugh, "Super Motopapi vibes." Along with Rosalía, Blue would love to collaborate with artists like Frank Ocean, Charli XCX, Grimes, Bad Bunny, Karol G, Björk, and, of course, Britney. With plans for more singles to come this year, he's already hard at work on his second album. "I love being Blue Rojo from now at this point in my life," he says. "I want to make a bit of a controversial album with a pop concept. I want to be an artist that has a voice. I want to keep talking about concepts that are very personal but that also matter in society." Pride Month Pop Music | Music |
South Korea succeeded in its second attempt to place a satellite into orbit using a domestically built space rocket, South Korean authorities said Tuesday, a key step in the country’s ambitious plans for independent space development.
Space minister Lee Jong-ho confirmed that the three-stage rocket, dubbed “Nuri,” deployed several satellites into orbit after being launched from a space center on a small island in the southwestern coastal area of Goheung.
The success comes eight months after Nuri’s maiden flight failed to place a dummy satellite into orbit when the rocket’s third stage malfunctioned.
With Tuesday’s successful launch, South Korea became the 10th country to place a satellite into space using its own technology. People watch a television screen showing a live footage of South Korea's homegrown space rocket Nuri, at a railway station in Seoul, June 21, 2022, South Korean officials insist the Nuri rocket has no military use. However, the launch shows South Korea can build bigger rockets and launch spy satellites that can monitor threats including North Korea, its nuclear-armed neighbor.
South Korean officials hope it also will help turn the country into a “space powerhouse," boosting not only its government-led space program but also its private aerospace industry.
“Now, a path to space has been opened from the Republic of Korea,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared following the launch. He also reiterated a commitment to establish a national aerospace agency.
Though South Korea has the world’s 10th largest economy, its space program is seen as lagging that of many other wealthy countries. Nuri, which means "world" in Korean, is meant to help reduce that gap.
Since 2010, South Korea has spent over $1.7 billion on the Nuri program. Officials hope it will aid the creation of a South Korean satellite-based navigation system and next-generation communication networks.
Experiences gained in satellite launches can also aid weapons development, since space launch vehicles and ballistic missiles share many features, analysts say.
South Korea’s weapons and space programs have also recently benefited from U.S. and South Korean decisions to ease joint restrictions on the development of South Korean missiles.
In March, South Korea’s military announced the country’s first successful test of a solid-fuel space rocket — a precursor to the deployment of satellites meant to monitor threats including North Korea.
South Korea currently relies on U.S. spy satellites to monitor North Korea. But Seoul has said it plans to launch its first homegrown spy satellite in 2023 via a rocket from SpaceX, the U.S. commercial space company.
South Korea is also working with SpaceX to launch a lunar orbiter later this year and aims to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon using South Korean technology by 2030.
North Korea has also attempted several space launches. It placed satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016, though there is no evidence those satellites are functioning. In March, North Korea indicated it was preparing to launch a “military reconnaissance satellite.”
The United States and its allies say North Korea’s space launches are thinly disguised tests of long-range ballistic missiles. Because of its illicit nuclear weapons program, North Korea is prohibited from any ballistic missile activity under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions. | Space Technology |
Editor’s Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She is morning editor at Katie Couric Media. She tweets @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion on CNN. CNN — It takes a special kind of personality to survive as a superstar for more than a decade. You either have to be a chameleon – a Madonna, or Lady Gaga – or a diamond. A shiny, indestructible diamond that just remains, no matter how many times it gets knocked. Jennifer Lopez, the impossibly beautiful, almost unnervingly relentless centerpiece of Netflix’s recent documentary, “Halftime,” is a diamond. She has, as the movie constantly reminds us, been doing this for some time, but she’s still a completely recognizable – if even more self-assured – version of the 27-year-old who starred in her breakout hit “Selena” in 1997. “It doesn’t feel any different than any other birthday,” she tells us as “Halftime” opens to footage of her blowing out the candles on her 50th birthday cake. Yet as “Halftime” goes on to prove, there’s a gulf between being a brilliant artist, performer or person, and baring yourself as a documentary subject. As a woman in the entertainment industry, Lopez lives, like all female celebrities, under exaggerated scrutiny – all the more so as a woman of color. The armor she’s built around herself and the forensic control she exercises over her narrative are completely understandable as tools for survival, but they can’t help but undercut the underdog’s success story that “Halftime” seems determined to tell. With a few tangential forays into Lopez’s childhood and early career, the documentary attends most to the six-month period between her 50th birthday and her Super Bowl halftime performance alongside Shakira in February 2020. Her mission statement is clear, sort of. “My whole life I’ve been battling, battling to be heard, to be seen, to be taken seriously. And now I have this incredible opportunity to show the world who I am… What am I gonna say?” she asks in a voiceover at the outset. As the movie continues, it emerges that the answer is twofold: She wants to showcase Latin culture and explode prejudice at the Super Bowl halftime show, and she wants to be taken seriously as a performer – especially for her turn as stripper-turned con artist Ramona in 2019’s “Hustlers.” Sometimes, these goals seem almost interchangeable. Both, as we discover, share tensions with the JLo brand. The major point Lopez is keen to spotlight during her Super Bowl set is the horrific cage-like conditions for child immigrants on the United States border. She makes a fair point in the film about soft power – the audience doesn’t want the message rammed down its throat – but there’s scarcely any interrogation of why (as someone with a long history of philanthropy) she’s waited until now to get publicly political. She has, according to the film, over 350 million followers across her social media platforms. Netflix Unique though the Super Bowl halftime stage is as a forum, it’s far from Lopez’s only outlet. And though the film touches briefly on the Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling controversy swirling around the NFL at the time, it forgoes any mention of the fact that Rihanna turned down the 2019 halftime show in solidarity because she “didn’t want to be an enabler” of systems that were helping to prop up the police brutality and injustice Kaepernick was protesting. There’s an argument to be made for seizing opportunities no matter who they come from, but “Halftime” doesn’t make it. As someone who’s embraced every opportunity the establishment has to offer her but has also been regularly reminded along the way how rare her position is, you can see why Lopez might be reluctant to deviate from ideas she’s confident will score mass appeal. That tunnel vision is in evidence when she’s discussing potential songs to close the halftime set. She’s sure a cameo from Bruce Springsteen singing “Born In The USA” will nail it. She admits that Shakira “isn’t crazy” about the song because, as she mentions fleetingly, Shakira was born in Colombia. On the day, Lopez’s child Emme sings the “Born In the USA” hook, and we don’t discover what Shakira thinks of that outcome. There’s little time to dwell on this though, as within seconds we’re back to Lopez’s personal journey. For the first time in two decades, her acting is generating serious awards buzz, and her hopes are high that she’ll be recognized by the Academy at last. Time, says “Halftime,” for some pathos. There’s a quick montage section covering the media’s fixation on Lopez in the early noughties – which was often lascivious at best, crudely racist at worst. In a cutaway interview, she reflects on her conspicuousness as a “curvy” (by Hollywood standards) woman in a celebrity world populated mainly by blonde waifs. She says she had to “really figure out” who she was to make it through that time. That’s all fair enough, but as a viewer, you’re left with a sense of being taken only part way there. Netflix Much like model Emily Ratajkowski in her otherwise excellent essay collection, “My Body,” Lopez describes the objectification she’s experienced in vivid detail but is less illuminating on her own response. There’s potential for real intimacy in a way that there wasn’t in say, “Framing Britney Spears,” which detailed Spears’ abuse by the press in stomach-curling detail, but didn’t include first-hand input from Spears herself. It feels like another opportunity missed. In her own 2017 Netflix documentary “Five Foot Two”, which also covers her Super Bowl, Lady Gaga addresses a similar problem head-on, explaining: “When they wanted me to be sexy or they wanted me to be pop I always…put some absurd spin on it that made me feel that I was still in control.” It would have been interesting if Lopez had discussed the creative choices behind projects like her “Jenny From The Block” music video, which repeatedly zeroed in on Lopez’s behind and featured paparazzi-like footage of her and her ever-supportive then-beau, Ben Affleck – who she’s now dating again, and makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in the film. Did she ever regret appearing to play along, or was she in control the whole time? We still don’t really know. The chief difficulty when it comes appraising a multi-talented superstar within just 95 minutes is that while it’s easy to agree that yes, Jennifer Lopez absolutely does deserve full credit for her achievements, the narrative arc of this documentary demands that your heart break when she doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination – a thing that regularly happens to equally talented actors. That disappointment leaves Lopez at her most exposed in the whole movie, but it would have been fascinating to hear more about the grittier details it skims over – like her early years as a dancer or the immediate aftermath when she left her parent’s house at 18 years old. It’s Lopez’s prerogative not to tell us, and she’s charismatic enough to carry the film either way. But the control that’s enabled her to build her fascinating life and career – and survive an industry that’s made victims of so many women like her – doesn’t quite leave scope for the vulnerability that would allow a full, raw picture. | Celebrity |
Glastonbury is upon us and the weather forecasts are in. There is good news and bad news.Festivalgoers will be reaching for the suncream and then the wellies as a sunny start gives way to heavy showers just as the main acts take to the stages on Friday.Helen Caughey, the Met Office’s deputy chief meteorologist, said the first of the 200,000 people arriving at the site would enjoy plenty of sunshine and highs of 26C (79F) or 27C on Wednesday and Thursday.But the forecast from Friday onwards looks muddy. “You should plan for both sunhats and raincoats for this year’s festival,” Caughey said.Heavy showers and thunderstorms are expected near Worthy Farm, in rural Somerset, on Friday and Saturday, potentially providing a dramatic, if rather soggy, backdrop to the headline sets of Billie Eilish and Paul McCartney.The downpours are not expected to last long but some surface water may accumulate, Caughey said. Surface water, in Glasto land, could well mean knee-deep mudbaths.Caughey added: “Sunday is expected to be mostly dry and bright at first but with showers once again developing through the morning, some of which could be heavy, and possibly thundery. The unsettled pattern is expected to continue to dominate into the start of next week.”Anyone who has attended Glastonbury – or lived in Britain – knows to expect sunshine and showers on the same day at this time of year.But Glastonbury sometimes seems to exist in its own curious microclimate, with freak events such as electrical storms causing chaos in recent years.The mixed forecast will almost certainly not dampen enthusiasm for the return of Glastonbury after its two-year Covid-19 hiatus. Gates open at 8am on Wednesday, come rain or shine. | Festivals |
‘We really felt like underdogs – but we smashed it’The first time we played Glastonbury was when we were just starting out. We were first on the NME stage, at noon, except we didn’t have the right passes. We were trying to argue ourselves in, saying: “We’re supposed to be on stage right now!” We got in after 10 minutes, just in normal clothes, played four songs, and that was it – but we smashed it.Then the next time we played Glastonbury, in 1999, we were headlining. But even though we were a band that was firing on all cylinders by that point, we really felt like underdogs. There was this attitude that you had to be a certain type of rock or Britpop band to be allowed to play Glastonbury. In the 90s, we constantly felt that we were having to prove ourselves. Then we walked on stage to the most thunderous, crazy welcome, with all the flags flying. I could see people all the way back, right up to the tents, and it was just this amazing gig. At the end, I said: “Shall we do another song?” and you’d never heard a louder “Yes!” in your life. We felt like, “Yeah, we did it!” We came to Glastonbury and we conquered. Skin, lead singer of Skunk Anansie ‘My eyes met those of a man in the Green Fields tent’Sarah Phillips and her husband-to-be at Glastonbury. Photograph: Courtesy of Sarah PhillipsFor me, walking through the gates to Glastonbury is like arriving at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I first started going when I was 15 and won tickets, and have had so many “Glastonbury moments” over the years with the important people in my life. My most memorable Glastonbury was 2007, when my eyes met those of a man in a crowded tent in the Green Fields, which my friends and I had chanced upon, drawn to the kind of beats you need at 2am. We chatted for hours, he bought me a chai, and we exchanged numbers. The next day we went on our first date, which included a massage in the Healing Field, vodka jellies, watching Babyshambles and a wild night at the Rabbit Hole, telling everyone who would listen our story. Truly, there is nowhere more romantic than Glastonbury, even on the muddiest of years, as it was. At the end of the weekend, we went our separate ways and I wondered if I would ever see him again. Eight years later we got married. I can’t wait to go back with the kids. Sarah Phillips, writer and editor‘Keith Richards’ manager saw me and I got to cut in front of Prince Harry’When the Rolling Stones were playing Glastonbury, we were waiting backstage to get into their inner sanctum. Prince Harry was waiting, too. I remembered a few years before that, when I was going to see the Killers play in Hyde Park, and I was waiting to go backstage to say hi to [the band’s singer] Brandon Flowers. Then Harry cut in front of me – they let him and his posse in ahead, and I had to wait outside. Then the band had to go on stage so I never got to say hi to Brandon.So here we were at Glastonbury, many years later, in a similar situation and Harry and I were waiting to go backstage and see the Rolling Stones. He was in front of me, and then Keith Richards’ manager came out and saw me, and I got to cut in front of Prince Harry. He looked kind of bewildered, but it was all in good fun, and he made it in eventually. It was a funny little reversal of fortune.One of the times I played Glastonbury, in 2005, it was really hot, and everybody was sweating. I’d worn a three-piece suit, so I was boiling. Glastonbury is the place where you’re supposed to be crazy and do whatever you want, so I took off my jacket and my shirt. This was many years ago, when I was slim and, I felt, warranted to be shirtless. In the middle of the show, I got a message from my manager – who I subsequently fired – who said, “Put your shirt back on.” It was like my mom had called, but I wasn’t going to let anything take me down – and I didn’t put my shirt on. Rufus Wainwright, singer, songwriter and composer ‘We bonded over a dedication to finding the party while battling the elements’If festivals are a true test of friendship then the ones made at Worthy farm are surely forged in steel. It’s where I met one of my best buds, Hannah, in 2014 and where we bonded over our herculean dedication to finding the party while battling the elements. Sure, you’re forever holding your pal’s drink outside a portable toilet, but have you ever climbed up a mudslide together? This is the kind of weather-related trauma specific to Glastonbury that binds for life.During a monsoon year, the only way to reach the Crow’s Nest, the festival’s highest tent – where, illogically, we simply had to dance – was to attempt to scale a real-life fudge mountain. On we went, steadying each other, desperate not to slip, sharing a look that said “we must stick together or we will die”, and arrived an hour later just as the final song played. Everyone held hands in a giant circle to the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows. It was then that I knew our friendship could withstand anything, even being hundreds of miles apart.Hannah has lived outside the UK for years now but we still go to every Glastonbury in search of that warm, fuzzy Beach Boys feeling. Kate Hutchinson, journalist and broadcaster‘I left a muddy Glastonbury early – and learned to stay until the bitter end’Down and dirty … Glasto in 1997. Photograph: PA Images/AlamyI arrived at Glastonbury 1997 on a coach, containing the staff of the magazine I worked for. Some of them were even less prepared for what awaited us than I was: a manager’s girlfriend was wearing – and I’m not making this up – a white trouser suit, a bold choice for Glastonbury regardless of the weather. Within minutes of arriving, she burst into tears. It was an endless sea of mud, so deep it sucked the wellingtons off your feet. People staggered about, covered in mud because they’d fallen over, a state of affairs too horrendous to contemplate until it happened to me. It seemed to be raining horizontally. One of the stages had apparently collapsed. I don’t remember seeing any bands, and I felt convinced that it would be impossible to enjoy myself.I left on Saturday morning. Radiohead were headlining that night but I couldn’t imagine their emotional tenor would improve my mood. A friend who had stayed called me on Monday, telling me I’d made a mistake. He was the first person I heard describing Radiohead’s 1997 Glastonbury performance in terms that subsequently became familiar: incredible, career-defining, epochal. That was a lesson about sticking out Glastonbury regardless, and I’ve stayed to the bitter end ever since. Alexis Petridis, music critic | Music |
The best live bands are the most unpredictable, with every performance teetering between triumph and disaster. But even the most chaotic acts usually have some sort of set list.Not Ultimate Thunder. This seven-piece post-punk outfit from Leeds amble on stage without even the vaguest running order, nor any confidence that their vocalist, Matthew Watson, will actually sing a note.“We did one gig where he didn’t say a word the whole time and just stood staring at Scott, our drummer. The first the audience heard from him was right at the end when he said: ‘Isn’t the drummer amazing?!’” remembered guitarist James Heselwood this week, before the launch of Bring The Science, Ultimate Thunder’s debut single.Several members of the band are almost or exclusively non-verbal. Photograph: Andrew BengeThat particular manoeuvre is described by the band’s producer, Napoleon IIIrd, as “The most Mark E Smith thing ever”, a reference to the famously unpredictable frontman of Manchester’s The Fall. Until his death in 2018, Smith stalked the stage like a belligerent tiger, twiddling with the amps and berating his bandmates, the audience never sure if he was going to start a fight or deliver the best gig of their lives.It is a fitting comparison: though sunnier natured than Smith, Watson specialises in sometimes aggressive, always surreal stream-of-consciousness lyrics that make surprising juxtapositions: one track on their eponymous debut album is called Holiday Camp Holiday Inn.Everyone in Ultimate Thunder except Heselwood has learning disabilities. He founded the band 11 years ago as an art project with the help of Leeds charity People In Action. Like The Fall, who went through 66 members in their 40-year existence, Ultimate Thunder has had a revolving lineup, with Watson now at the helm after the band’s original singer, Dan Milligan, died.Now supported by Pyramid, another Leeds-based arts charity, the band received a £43,000 grant from the Arts Council to make their debut LP and have it professionally mixed, pressed and promoted. The album artwork is by bassist John Greaves, another founding member, who gives off an air of supreme indifference. “Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with the basslines and I look over and see John playing a note with one hand and looking up anime comics on his phone with the other,” said Heselwood.With several members of the band almost or exclusively non-verbal, and the others communicating in often non-linear fashion, they are less interested in being interviewed than jamming in their rehearsal space. Improvisation is their speciality. Someone tinkles a few notes on the piano or makes up a guitar riff, Anderson’s ferocious drums kick in, Watson begins to recite whatever is on his mind and they are off.This seven-piece outfit from Leeds amble on stage without even the vaguest running order, nor any confidence that their vocalist, Matthew Watson, will actually sing a note. Photograph: Andrew BengeThere is just one rule in Ultimate Thunder: no covers. They have done just one in 11 years, a festive rant called Jingle Bloody Bells which bore no relation to the festive original.None of the band is particularly into The Fall: their music just comes out like that, with an added sweep of Hawkwind-esque bombast. Despite delivering most of Ultimate Thunder’s lyrics as beat poetry meets rap, Watson, a big Tom Jones fan with perfect pitch, can effortlessly switch between genres when crooning around the piano. John Densley, on bongos, only really likes one song (Silent Night … any time of the year). Alex Sykes on keys has eclectic taste ranging from Kiss to Scooter, the German happy hardcore band.“Who is the most rock’n’roll member?” mused Heselwood. “Tough question.” He looked over at Scott Anderson, the drummer, who is paying no attention to the conversation. “Sometimes I look over and see Scott spitting in the air and catching it again in his mouth. That’s pretty rock’n’roll.”Wannabe rock stars study for years to project the nonchalance of their heroes. It comes naturally to Ultimate Thunder, who seem less interested in talking about their first album than getting back into their Leeds rehearsal studio to jam. Talking is not their speciality: guitarist Kenneth Stainburn, the baby of the band, hands over a piece of paper on which someone has handwritten his band bio.“My name is Kenneth Stainburn. I am 22 years old and I live in Castleford and I have learning disabilities. I like music, singing and making my own songs. I like most music and I play drums and guitar. In my spare time I play learning disability rugby league and I play for Castleford Tigers LD team.”Playing live requires a lot of coordination of support workers and helpers, but they have gigged in Leeds and Bradford, sometimes alongside non-disabled bands such as That Fucking Tank. On 21 July they launch their album at Sheaf Street/Duke Studios in Leeds. Just don’t expect them to actually play any of the album tracks. Or for their singer to sing. Anything could happen. | Music |
DUE SOUTH?While confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as parklife, it is also something the FA has expressed in Gareth Southgate following England’s decidedly poor showing in their recent run of Nations League fixtures. After England were booed by their own supporters following a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Hungary at Molineux, the radio switchboards in Knee-Jerk FM studios the length and breadth of the country predictably lit up like Christmas trees, as one Angry Ranty Fan after another called for Southgate’s immediate dismissal just five months and two friendlies before the Human Rights World Cup in Qatar.While there is no doubting Southgate’s abilities as a politician, diplomat, pizza salesman and communicator, valid questions do remain over his coaching abilities and in-game decision-making. His results at major tournaments provide compelling evidence he is the second most successful coach in England’s history, but it’s worth bearing in mind that his side enjoyed the easiest imaginable run to a World Cup semi-final in Russia before going out to a team they should probably have beaten, then let Italy off the hook before losing last summer’s Euros final on spot-kicks.Sign up to get the full version of The Fiver sent to your inbox.“Prior to Gareth being the manager there was not the pride of wearing the England shirt,” tooted FA chair Debbie Hewitt, in defence of Southgate. “There was a club rivalry we would read about, players not getting on. He’s changed that beyond recognition and I’ve seen that for myself. I’ve worked in business and Gareth’s skills, his high IQ, would make him a chief executive in any sphere. That resilience and accountability, there’s no slouched shoulders and that’s what you want in an England manager. We have confidence in Gareth for all the reasons I described and I think that’s the important thing. And it’s particularly important going into the biggest tournament.”While taking the blame for things which aren’t necessarily our fault has long been a Fiver forte, our inability to stand up straight as a result of years being forced to work in the crawlspace under Fiver Towers is likely to rule the world’s most daily football email out of contention for the England job whenever Southgate does eventually quit or get the heave-ho. For now, however, he and his players have Qatar to think about, not least the manner in which they plan to make a stand against – and handle the inevitable questions about – the abuses visited upon migrant workers by the hosts. “As far as the team is concerned, they are playing in Qatar and it’s inevitable they will be asked questions about human rights,” said Hewitt. “In fact, they are curious and want to learn and want to think about the best way that they can make a difference. Ultimately, we will discuss with the team and with Gareth what we feel is the best statement we can make, particularly about leaving behind a legacy with the rest of our football colleagues internationally.”And though the FA continues to talk a good game about addressing this decidedly thorny issue, as the clock ticks down to the tournament kick-off in November, it seems remarkable that a mere 12 years after finding out Qatar would be staging the finals, it still appears to have nothing resembling a plan. Of course, talk is better than nothing, but much like a World Cup infrastructure being built by migrant workers who have slaved away in sweltering conditions for the past decade, it also comes cheap.QUOTE OF THE DAY“He had his time, his space. He has a beautiful history in Turkey, no one can take it away from him. He is a well-known player around the world. But I follow the end of the Özil era” – new Fenerbahce boss Jorge Jesus clears a path for Mesut Özil to pursue a career doing what he loves – playing Fortnite.Mesut Özil, sidelined and on his way from Fener. Photograph: Murad Sezer/ReutersFIVER LETTERS“Re: fans booing players they once loved on their return with their new club (yesterday’s Fiver), this is by no means inevitable. In my nearly 60 years of watching Blackeye Rovers, I reckon there have been at least as many welcomes for past heroes who have moved on as venom. In my experience it depends on what they’ve contributed; how they have left and where they have ended up. Nevertheless, the one time I felt really ashamed as a Rovers fan was when Alan Shearer first returned to Ewood Park in a Newcastle shirt and a section of fans actually booed him. Thankfully, on subsequent visits he received the warm reception he warranted” – John Myles.“I usually agree with Noble Francis, but I think he might be aiming at the wrong target this time (yesterday’s Fiver letters). Jaap Stam is implying that recent managers at Manchester United have not been backed by the board. I think, if you looked at the huge sums they have spent on players in the last five or six years, the board could justifiably claim to have supported each manager very well indeed. The fact that the billion-pound squad is still useless and in need of a complete rebuild is not totally down to the board” – Geoff Saunders.Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … John Myles.NEWS, BITS AND BOBSRyan Giggs, who is facing a trial on charges of domestic violence in August, is no longer the manager of Wales. “I do not want the country’s preparations for the World Cup to be affected, destabilised or jeopardised in any way by the continued interest around this case,” he said.Fifa is reviewing its gender eligibility regulations in the wake of Fina’s ruling to bar transgender women from elite female competitions.Cameroon’s Football Federation has summoned 44 players from eight clubs for a hearing next month into alleged age or identity cheating.Meanwhile, its chief suit, Samuel Eto’o, has been handed a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Spanish court after admitting tax fraud of €3.8m while with Barcelona. He also agreed to pay a €1.8m fine and repay the tax owed. “I admit the facts and I am going to pay what I’m due, but let it be known that I was a just a child then and that I always did what my former agent José María Mesalles, who I considered like a father, asked me to do at that time,” said Eto’o.Samuel Eto’o and his big rims leave the court in Barcelona. Photograph: Alejandro García/EPAFootball’s very own version of the Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man meme? This renewal of a commercial partnership at Cambridge United.And after finally signing Nayef Aguerd, West Ham are now in for Messo, De Briyne and Saluh erm, Armando Broja.STILL WANT MORE?The new lightning rod at Manchester United, Richard Arnold, needs a good transfer window to get fans he hasn’t already met in Cheshire pubs onside – and signing Frenkie de Jong wouldn’t be a bad start, writes Jamie Jackson.Ben McAleer picks out some players in Europe being linked with moves to the Premier League so that you don’t have to.As you do. Composite: Inter via Getty Images; Getty Images; AFP via Getty ImagesAnd if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!FOOTBALL. GOLF. QUIZ | Other Sports |
What channel is it on? Who are the top prospects? Where do the Chicago Bulls pick — and which players might they target?Here’s everything you need to know about the 2022 NBA draft.The draft begins at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Barclays Center in New York. It’s the ninth time the home of the Brooklyn Nets is host to the event.Malika Andrews speaks during an NBA game between the Warriors and the Suns on Dec. 3, 2021, in San Francisco. (Jeff Chiu/AP)ESPN is broadcasting the draft for the 20th straight year, with former Chicago Tribune reporter Malika Andrews hosting for the first time. College basketball analyst Jay Bilas, NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins, NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski and NBA draft analysts Bobby Marks and Mike Schmitz will join Andrews on the main set.For the second year in a row, ABC-7 is airing the first round. Kevin Negandhi returns as the host and will be joined by analysts Stephen A. Smith, Chiney Ogwumike and Jalen Rose. Monica McNutt is the event reporter and will conduct interviews with draftees after their selection.For those who like this sort of thing, ESPN also will air a red-carpet pregame show from 4-5 p.m., hosted by Cassidy Hubbarth with analysts Perkins and Richard Jefferson. The three will preview the draft and interview prospects, team personnel and celebrities.The Bulls have the No. 18 pick in the first round but have no second-round selection because of the 2021 sign-and-trade with the San Antonio Spurs for DeMar DeRozan. They didn’t have a first-round pick last year, having dealt it to the Orlando Magic for Nikola Vučević. They selected Illinois and Morgan Park product Ayo Dosunmu in the second round at No. 38, and he was named to the All-Rookie second team.The Bulls’ last first-round pick was Patrick Williams at No. 4 in 2020, the first selection of the Artūras Karnišovas-Marc Eversley regime.LSU forward Tari Eason celebrates a basket during a game against Mississippi on Feb. 1, 2022, in Baton Rouge, La. (Matthew Hinton/AP)Chicago Tribune SportsWeekdaysA daily sports newsletter delivered to your inbox for your morning commute.Of 14 mock drafts listed below, six have the Bulls taking LSU forward Tari Eason. Here’s a sampling of “expert” opinions.The Athletic: Tari Eason, F, LSUBasketball News: EasonBleacher Report: E.J. Liddell, F, Ohio StateCBS Sports: Jalen Duren, C, MemphisESPN: Jalen Williams, F, Santa ClaraNBADraft.net: EasonNBC Sports: Ochai Agbaji, SG, KansasThe Ringer: LiddellSB Nation: EasonSports Illustrated: LiddellStadium: WilliamsTankathon: EasonUSA Today: AgbajiYahoo Sports: EasonWith championship trophies gleaming, B.J. Armstrong is all smiles as he tells the media that he "is the veteran on this young Bulls team", on Sept. 1, 1999. (DAVID TROTMAN-WILKINS)Once. In 1989, they drafted Iowa guard B.J. Armstrong at that spot. He was the second of the Bulls’ three first-round picks that year — they took Stacey King of Oklahoma at No. 6 and Jeff Sanders of Georgia Southern at No. 20.Joe Dumars, whom the Detroit Pistons drafted in 1987, is the lone Hall of Famer. According to Basketball Reference, of the 20 players drafted at No. 18 to have at least 20 career win shares, Mark Jackson (1987, New York Knicks) tops the list at 91.8, followed by Dumars (86.2), David West (2003, New Orleans Hornets, 85.9), Ricky Pierce (1982, Pistons, 72.2) and Vern Fleming (1984, Indiana Pacers, 52).Other notables in the top 20 are Armstrong (10th with 45), Dave Corzine (1978, Washington Bullets, 13th with 37.3) and Quentin Richardson (2000, Los Angeles Clippers, 14th with 32.8).Auburn forward Jabari Smith (10) reacts after making a 3-pointer against Alabama on Feb. 1 in Auburn, Ala. (Butch Dill/AP)The consensus No. 1 is Auburn forward Jabari Smith going to the Orlando Magic (full draft order). Most mock drafts have Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Purdue’s Jaden Ivey and Iowa’s Keegan Murray among the top selections.Other than Ivey, who is the son of Notre Dame women’s coach Niele Ivey, and Liddell, a two-time Mr. Basketball of Illinois winner out of Belleville West High School, draft hopefuls with area connections include:Patrick Baldwin Jr., Milwaukee (son of ex-Northwestern player and assistant Pat Baldwin)Max Christie, Michigan State (Rolling Meadows HS)Kofi Cockburn, IllinoisAJ Griffin, Duke (son of former Bulls player and assistant Adrian Griffin)Ron Harper Jr., Rutgers (son of former Bull Ron Harper)Scotty Pippen Jr., Vanderbilt (son of former Bull Scottie Pippen)Blake Wesley, Notre DameTrevion Williams, Purdue (Chicago native/Mount Carmel HS before moving to Detroit as a sophomore)NBA free agency — a big concern for the Bulls considering two-time All-Star Zach LaVine is an unrestricted free agent — begins at 5 p.m. Aug. 2. | Basketball |
ATLANTA — This would have been a trip home for Joey Bart. Growing up some 40 miles northeast of Truist Park, Bart developed into a top high-school prospect, then at the downtown campus of Georgia Tech earned the pedigree that convinced the Giants to make him their highest draft pick since Will Clark.
Those inside the organization still view Bart as their catcher of the future. But there is a reason why he’s not with the team on this trip. His failures at the plate were simply piling up. Forty-five percent of his plate appearances were ending in strikeouts, the highest rate in the majors at the time of his demotion.
It wasn’t a sustainable situation for a team with playoff aspirations, nor for a young player who was being asked to make adjustments on the fly while also managing a major-league pitching staff.
“When you’re in the battle every single night, it’s hard to make those adjustments because you have to go perform,” said hitting coach Justin Viele, who spent the week before the Giants hit the road and Bart reported to Triple-A Sacramento implementing a development plan to get the once-promising backstop back on track. “But we got Joey in a pretty good space where he didn’t have to go perform each night. He could actually work on some things that we wanted to work on.”
Bart took four days to clear his head, then spent three days working with Viele. Clark, who hangs around the team as a special assistant, also hoped to have a conversation with Bart, something manager Gabe Kapler encouraged.
In Viele’s estimation, the mental and the mechanics take equal blame for Bart’s strikeouts. The time off, the club hopes, will help him overcome the mental barriers, and there’s belief some mechanical tweaks can have downstream effects, too.
Viele saw flaws in Bart’s set-up in the box, leading to an inefficient swing path. His stance was too wide, too upright. He was rocking back as he loaded up, resulting in his hands lifting up and his knees driving his swing, rather than his hips.
As a catcher, Bart is accustomed to squatting. Viele suggested he try something similar in the batter’s box. “We want him to feel like he was bowing his knees out, like going down for a squat,” Viele said. “Getting some stability in his set-up from there just creates the balance of the backside, where the knee stays over the foot. … We wanted to kill as much of the backshift as we can. … Main thing, it was hit set up, getting a little bit stronger in his base and shedding some of the wasted movement.”
Bart was doing himself no favors, falling into two-strike counts in 75 of his 108 trips to the plate. In those at-bats, he recorded just four hits, an average of .060. Those struggles, Viele believes, can compound on each other.
“I guarantee if he was squaring early count pitches up more often instead of fouling them back, the mechanics would probably clean up,” Viele said. “I think guys get frustrated. Like, if you miss a pitch 0-0 and you’re 0-1, you’re kind of like, OK, why’d I miss that? So then maybe you try to do more the next time and you swing and miss again or you foul it off, like, do I have it in me to catch a ball a little bit more out in front? Like, why am I not squaring these up? And then that starts to spiral in your head.” Bart has only one game under his belt since reporting to Sacramento, going 2-for-4 with a walk – and no strikeouts — in a 12-1 win on Sunday. There is no timeline for him to rejoin the Giants; the focus is back on developing the player, not getting contributions from him at the major-league level.
Viele, who handed Bart off to Triple-A hitting coach Damon Minor, watched the video. He texted Bart after the game Sunday and received reports from the River Cats’ staff. He already sees signs of improvement.
“It looked really good,” Viele said. “Like all hitters, it’s like a puzzle. … I felt like we had a good plan for Joe, and we sent him off, and he’s in good hands. Now we just keep the communication going.” | Baseball |
EastEnders actress Jessie Wallace, known for her role as Kat Slater in the BBC soap, was called into a meeting with senior bosses, during which she expressed her "deep regret" over an incident on Sunday morningJessie Wallace has been issued with a warning by EastEnders bosses over her "unacceptable" behaviour at the weekend. The actress, known for her role as Kat Slater in the BBC soap, was called into a meeting with senior bosses, during which she expressed her "deep regret" over an incident on Sunday morning. Jessie, 50, was arrested for allegedly attacking a police officer outside a nightclub. She accepted a caution following the incident. A BBC spokesperson told the Mirror: “Senior bosses have spoken to Jessie Wallace about the incident and issued a clear warning that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable and Jessie has expressed her deep regret.” We'll be bringing you the latest updates on this breaking showbiz news story. Please check back regularly for updates on this developing story HERE. Get email updates on the day’s biggest stories straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletters. Get all the big headlines, pictures, analysis, opinion and video on the stories that matter to you by following The Mirror every time you see our name. Follow The Mirror on Google News - CLICK HERE and click the star Follow The Mirror on Apple News - CLICK HERE available on Apple devices Follow The Mirror on Flipboard - CLICK HERE and click follow You can sign up for Twitter alerts for breaking news here @MirrorBreaking_ and follow us @MirrorCeleb for all the latest updates. Keep up-to-date with your must-see news, features, videos and pictures throughout the day by following us on Facebook at facebook.com/MirrorCeleb See all our social accounts you can follow here: mirror.co.uk/social | Celebrity |
Did you witness the incident on Sunday? Get in touch: [email protected] The BBC is 'considering all options' as bosses determine Jessie Wallace's future at EastEnders following her arrest outside a nightclub over the weekend.The star is said to have 'told a police officer to "f*** off you fat c***" during five minutes of carnage' in Bury St Edmunds on Sunday in which she also allegedly kneed him in the groin, leaving him on his knees in agony.Footage released last night showed the moment Wallace - best known for playing barmaid Kat Slater in the flagship soap - was detained following a 'drunken' night out, with witnesses claiming she had been kicked out of Flex nightclub for being 'gobby'.The actress was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution.Corporation chiefs are 'concerned' by the revelations - the latest controversy in a troubled career which saw her suspended from EastEnders just two years ago following an 'incident while filming'.Crunch talks about her future were said to have been held last night, as a source told the Sun: 'She clearly hoped this wouldn't come out and didn't want the production team to know about it, which may explain why she was so quick to accept the conditional caution and avoid a public court hearing. 'At first she played down the claims, but pictures and videos as well as onlookers tell a much more serious tale and one that the BBC are very concerned by. They’re considering all options.'EastEnders representatives at the BBC have been approached for comment. Video has emerged of EastEnders actress Jessie Wallace being arrested outside a nightclub The star, who is known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap, was detained in the early hours of yesterday on suspicion of assaulting a police officer as well as drunk and disorderly conduct in Bury St Edmunds Footage shows the star, best known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap, being arrested by officers outside a Burger King in Bury St Edmunds, in the early hours of yesterdayShe was later released without charge by Suffolk Police after receiving a conditional caution. A Suffolk Police spokesman told MailOnline today: 'A 50-year-old woman was arrested early on Sunday morning in St Andrew's Street, Bury St Edmunds, on suspicion of assaulting a police officer / drunk and disorderly conduct and was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution.' Wallace was out at Flex nightclub at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk on Saturday night (file picture)Jessie Wallace arrested after 'drunken' night out: Eastenders star's previous encounters with the law and her co-starsFootage has shown the moment Jessie Wallace was arrested outside a nightclub after allegedly attacking a police officer following a 'drunken' night out.But it is not the first time the EastEnders star has had a run-in with law enforcement.Wallace was banned from driving for three years and fined £1,000 in 2003 for an offence of drink driving. Police stopped the then 32-year-old in Chelmsford, Essex, in March after she was caught breaking the speed limit in her £32,000 silver Mercedes.She was one and a half times the legal limit, with tests revealing 51mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.Wallace claimed she had been drinking wine, which someone had 'laced' with vodka. However a judge rejected her claim and banned her for three years.A three-year ban was imposed because it was her second drink-related driving offence. Former colleague Barbara Windsor also revealed how she had a blazing row with Wallace when working together on the EastEnders set. Windsor said she had lost her temper because then 39-year-old Wallace, kept her waiting.‘Jessie Wallace was the first time I erupted. She was late, she was young. She’s not like that any more. I lost my temper,’ said Barbara. In 2017, Wallace was also filmed launching an expletive-ridden tirade after being reportedly kicked out of a pub. Video filmed by the Old Eagle in Camden, north London, showed the soap star with a friend shouting 'f**** you' at a man who had accused her of creating a disturbance inside.In December, she appeared strained as she spoke to police near her London home alongside her daughter Tallulah, 16.Wallace emerged in her slippers to speak to two police officers, who parked their squad car in the middle of a suburban street on December 28.She was flanked by Tallulah, who she shares with Mr Morgan, as they engaged in the strained conversation with the law-enforcement officers.The actress previously blasted Met Police's failure to investigate when Tallulah was mugged in north London in 2018. This incident is the latest in a series of troubles for Wallace, who has been suspended from work before, with reports claiming she was boozing on set in 2020, forcing bosses to write her out of a number of episodes.She was also found guilty of drink driving in 2003, which resulted in a £1,000 fine and a three-year ban from sitting behind the wheel.Wallace also suffered heartbreak in 2011 as she called off her wedding to fiancé Vincent Morse after he allegedly sent his ex-girlfriend an explicit picture of the soap star.During the incident on Sunday, it is claimed she kneed the officer in the groin before she was arrested and placed into a police van. Earlier in the day Wallace had been with her new builder boyfriend watching a Madness gig at Thetford Forest, Brandon - where she posed for photographs with fans.The star was later detained on suspicion of assaulting a police officer as well as drunk and disorderly conduct.A witness said: 'It was truly shocking behaviour. She was out of control. It was worse than anything Kat Slater has done.'She was a one-woman rampage. It was five minutes of carnage. The police dealt with it very well.' But she was later released without charge by Suffolk Police after receiving a conditional caution.On Monday a Suffolk Police spokesman told MailOnline: 'A 50-year-old woman was arrested early on Sunday morning in St Andrew's Street, Bury St Edmunds, on suspicion of assaulting a police officer/drunk and disorderly conduct and was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution.'The force would not confirm she was arrested, while neither her agent nor manager responded to a request for comment. The arrest was first reported by The Sun.One witness told MailOnline how Wallace was arrested after being kicked-out of the club for being 'gobby'.The witness said: 'She was acting very drunken disorderly, assaulting police officers and swearing constantly.'She then went on to shout out, “I hope this is all entertainment for you c***s”, whilst barging through the middle of our group. She then ended up banging on the door of the police wagon she was in. 'Bouncers had chucked her out due to how gobby and annoying she was being to others.'Earlier this month, Wallace was pictured outside a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards.The star was wearing a glitzy top with bright white trousers and no shoes as she left the party in east London.It comes after Wallace revealed she had been dating her builder boyfriend for a year.It was previously reported that Wallace had fallen for the workman after booking him for a job, but the star has since clarified they've known each other far longer.In May, she shared an Instagram that they had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance.Predicting that it will be a long-term union, a source told The Mirror: 'It's like a plotline from the soap – a classic Kat escapade. Jessie seems to be over the moon.' The NTA winner laughed up a storm as she chatted with him in the Transit in May.She split with her last boyfriend, father of five Paul Kempin in 2019 after a two year relationship and, before that, was dumped by musician Tim Arnold in 2016.Wallace had been dating the singer since 2012, but he claimed to have become 'tired' of the limelight at the time.Before she began a relationship with Tim, the award-winning actress was engaged to catering boss Vince Morse, but she called off their wedding after she found out he'd sent raunchy texts to a former lover the night before their wedding day.Wallace, originally from Enfield, north London, joined EastEnders in 2000 having featured in The Bill a year earlier.She played the role of barmaid Kat Slater, the partner of popular character Alfie Moon - played by Shane Richie. She quickly became a fan favourite.The pair had a five-year break from the screen before returning in the autumn of 2010 for another stint on the popular soap.They left again for six months in 2015 to film their own BBC One drama, Kat & Alfie: Redwater. Earlier in the day Wallace had been with her new builder boyfriend watching a Madness gig (pictured) at Thetford Forest, Brandon - where she posed for photographs with fans In May, she shared an Instagram that her and her boyfriend (pictured together at the Madness concert) had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance Dating: The EastEnders star shared on Instagram that they had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance Her man: It was previously reported that Jessie fell for the workman after booking him for a job, but the star has since clarified they've known each other far longer Jessie Wallace outside a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards in London on June 11 Jessie Wallace (left) at a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards in London on June 11 Jessie Wallace, pictured at the National Television Awards at The O2 in London in January 2019 Wallace is known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap EastEnders (pictured in August 2021)In the series Kate and Alfie go to the fiction Irish town of Redwater to 'search for answers to some very big questions' and put their past behind them. After the six-part drama, Wallace returned to EastEnders as Kat in 2018. In early 2020, Wallace was suspended from EastEnders again by the BBC, with a two-month suspension incurred due to an 'incident while filming'.She was said to have been summoned to a meeting with bosses of the show who ordered her to 'sort herself out' before returning. It is not the first time Wallace has had a run-in with the law. She was banned from driving for three years and fined £1,000 in 2003 for an offence of drink driving.Police stopped the then 32-year-old in Chelmsford, Essex, in March after she was caught breaking the speed limit in her £32,000 silver Mercedes.She was one and a half times the legal limit, with tests revealing 51mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.Wallace claimed she had been drinking wine, which someone had 'laced' with vodka. However a judge rejected her claim and banned her for three years.A three-year ban was imposed because it was her second drink-related driving offence. The actress recently became a grandmother after her 17-year-old daughter Tallulah gave birth to a boy.Did you witness the incident? Get in touch: [email protected] | Celebrity |
Celebrity | 6/21/2022 8:20 AM PT "Khloé found out end of November/beginning of December when the documents leaked..." a Redditor commented. "So the meeting was staged." It seems Kardashian fans are beginning to put two and two together. Viewers have been noticing a few discrepancies in the final episode of the famous family's new Hulu reality show, leading them to believe a key scene may have been staged. "The family meeting was filmed January 31st based on Kourtney's outfit, [but] Khloé found out end of November/beginning of December when the documents leaked and she did attend Christmas with the fam," a user commented about the season finale on a Reddit thread. "So the meeting was staged." The Redditor referred to a scene where Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble assemble for a family meeting to discuss Tristan Thompson's infidelity scandal that was made public before Khloe Kardashian's knowledge. Getty Khloe Kardashian Reacts to Rumor She's Dating Another NBA Star View Story The family discussion was meant to take place one day after the SKIMS mogul discovered the documents that revealed that Thompson had not only cheated on her sister, but fathered another child. Eagle-eyed fans noticed that Kourtney was wearing the same black jumpsuit and sporting the same silver colored nails as when she was photographed while spending time with her husband Travis Barker in Malibu over a month later in January 2022. Of course, Kourt could have worn the same outfit more than once. However, the nail polish had at least one internet sleuth convinced it was all a setup. "Her nails are chrome in the episode," the fan wrote. "In these pap shots, they are as well, chrome … I'm a nail technician, and lemme tell you, chrome chips soo quickly." Other internet detectives also pointed out that Kim had mentioned the family's annual Christmas card which left fans wondering if the reality star had an ulterior motive to make the timelines appear more cohesive. Getty / Instagram Why Pete Davidson Thought Reign Disick's Name Was Raymond For The Longest Time View Story "Then Kim mentioned the [holiday] photoshoot to convince us it was December … 💀," another said. Last week, Khloe took to Twitter to admit that she struggled with watching the new "Kardashians" finale which heavily centered around Thompson and the moment the world found out about his paternity scandal -- including herself. Despite the painful nature of the episode, Khloe found the silver lining in watching how deep her bond runs within her family. "This was definitely a tough episode but there's so much beauty in watching how close my family is," the Good American founder tweeted. "We'll always stick together and love one another deeply." She continued her sentiments in a separate tweet, "Life is full of lessons, teachable moments. We should handle them with grace/love. Even if we are hurt by them. Take ur moment, cry/scream but remain composed & remember that Love heals & teaches more than anger or hate ever will. We all deserve forgiveness and most of all… LOVE." | Celebrity |
Dominik collaborates again with musician Cave after 2016's "One More Time With Feeling" on the new documentary, filmed by "The Favourite" DP Robbie Ryan. “This Much I Know to Be True”screenshot/Mubi Six years and one pandemic after director Andrew Dominik teamed with musician Nick Cave on the documentary “One More Time with Feeling,” and the collaborative duo return with another concert doc, this time in lieu of Cave’s planned early 2021 tour.
“This Much I Know to Be True” debuts July 8 on Mubi after wowing audiences at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. Starting with Cave’s sculpture studio, the new documentary from “Blonde” writer/director Dominik captures Cave and Warren Ellis’ creative partnership, expanding on Cave’s 2014 pseudo-doc “20,000 Days on Earth.”
“In time we all find out we are not in control,” Cave says in the trailer. “We never were. We never will be.”
The existential doc takes place in an abandoned Bristol factory as Cave performs — for the first time ever — tracks from his most recent albums “Ghosteen” with his band The Bad Seeds and “Carnage” alongside Ellis. Singers and a string quartet accompany the performances, plus a special guest appearance by Marianne Faithfull. Dominik and director of photography Robbie Ryan (“Marriage Story,” “The Favourite”) capture Cave’s performances using a circular dolly, creating a looped world within the recording studio. “This Much I Know to Be True” is a companion piece to Dominik’s “One More Time With Feeling,” which will also be available to stream on Mubi starting August 6.
In the IndieWire review of “This Much I Know to Be True,” critic Ben Croll wrote, “If grief underscored every moment of Dominik’s 2016 first Cave doc, for his follow-up he settled on showmanship, delivering a film that is a pleasure from beginning to end.”
The film “projects a beguiling degree of Zen self-confidence as it deploys the barest minimum of its prodigious technical skill to better spotlight the music,” Croll added, crediting Dominik’s “sublime” direction. “If Dominik neither wants nor makes ‘This Much I Know to Be True’ too personal a document, he does slyly undercut his film’s formal polish by closing it with a more vulnerable reveal. Gently lifting the curtain on a man who has found brilliance in his work by de-emphasizing its importance in his life, Cave begins the final interview describing his dissatisfactions with a recently shot sequence, revealing degrees of self-doubt and exhaustion, before Dominik cuts to the song in question.”
“This Much I Know to Be True” premieres July 8 on Mubi.
Check out the trailer below. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Music |
Traditionally, Fire Emblem has been a series about emotionally over-investing in the triumphs, romances and deaths of anime-styled characters on fantasy battlefields. It’s been tactical and slow-paced, giving you plenty of time to wring your hands over strategic decisions before you end each turn. Three Hopes, however, is what’s known as a “musou” game, an action-heavy twist on the series that follows up 2017’s Fire Emblem Warriors. It’s also a companion to 2019’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses, a story about how three classes from the same Officers Academy become opposing war factions.Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes plays as an alternate-universe version of Three Houses, leading to changes in how the story develops, and providing new context to the events of the previous game. You don’t need to be familiar with Three Houses in order to play Three Hopes, but I’m not sure why you’d play it if you weren’t. This feels like another piece of an established story: it doesn’t explain the relationships between characters, for instance, trusting players to remember these connections instead. Besides, the joy of Three Hopes lies in how it plays around with previously established events in Fire Emblem history, and how it (re-)introduces characters whose stories were cut short or merely hinted at before.In combat, characters fight hordes of largely identical foes in wide-open spaces, stringing together combos and causing as much damage as possible to as many enemies at once – the type of fighting popularised by developer Koei Tecmo’s long-running Dynasty Warriors series. You quickly alternate between heavy and light attacks, and each character’s unique strikes to defeat foes as quickly and forcefully as possible. Watching the screen erupt into showers of magical sparks or hails of arrows, or catching enemies in a tornado that whirls them away, is consistently entertaining, and these spectacles are easily achieved. Each battlefield is split into strongholds guarded by a captain; to seize a stronghold, you have to defeat them, and so you spend significant time locating targets on a map and sending your AI-controlled party members this way and that.It’s vital to keep an eye on everyone, and regularly take control yourself: the AI may be able to stall enemies, but rarely wins a battle without your intervention. Different enemies are weak against various character classes and weapons, and while that means a lot of rummaging through menus, choosing the right warriors and equipment to clear house during battle is half the fun. Three Hopes combines gameplay from two very different genres into something that I would love to see repeated, but as much as the game tries to introduce some variety into the hacking and slashing, missions quickly start repeating. There is an autobattle option available to skip encounters, but using it feels like defeating the purpose of playing.Busy battles ... Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. Photograph: NintendoOutside combat, you spend your time at the war camp, where main character Shez can fiddle around with items and abilities. Balancing issues crop up in camp management, particularly towards the endgame – your stores will be full to bursting with things you don’t need while you’re gasping for other resources. What I really came to camp for, however, was the characters: you can share meals, assign chores or simply have a chat with every member of your house. I didn’t expect as much character development and friendly chatter as I ended up getting, and I was delighted to reconnect with expertly voiced favourites such as the anxious Bernadetta, who sees each of her colleagues’ actions as a plot on her life; skirt-chaser Sylvain; and Ferdinand von Aegir, a vain noble who loves the sound of his own name. Here, too, repetition mildly detracts from the experience when you have to watch the same cooking or cleaning cutscenes over and over again, but the characters are designed with such love that I willingly put up with that in exchange for new dialogue.Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes gives the series the whirlwind combat that its fantastical story deserves, while still allowing you to lovingly gaze at your favourite anime boy or girl at a picnic. It’s really the best of both worlds. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is out 24 June; £49.99. | Video Games |
Topline
A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday the agency “deeply regrets” preventing a call from WNBA star Brittney Griner—who has been detained in Russia on drug charges since February—with her wife Cherelle for their fourth anniversary, as the embassy wasn’t staffed to patch the call. Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury walks hand and hand with wife Cherelle Watson after defeating ... [+] the Dallas Wings at Feld Entertainment Center on August 10, 2020 in Palmetto, Florida. Getty Images Key Facts Cherelle Griner, who has not spoken to Brittney in the four months she’s been detained, told the Associated Press the Phoenix Mercury star tried to call her 11 times on Saturday over several hours, after securing Russian permission for the conversation. A state spokesperson told Forbes on Tuesday the Griners were unable to speak because of a “logistical error,” and did not provide information on whether a new call would be scheduled. Crucial Quote
“Imagine the heartbreak. 123 days w/out hearing her voice. Holding out hope for a call. Finally getting that call, just to have it keep ringing,” Brittney Griner’s agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas tweeted about the incident. “My heart breaks into pieces every time I think of it - but it’s nothing compared to the reality BG and her family are enduring.” Key Background
Griner was detained in Russia on drug charges in February when hashish oil was allegedly discovered in her luggage when entering the country to play there during the WNBA’s off-season. The U.S. considers her to be wrongfully detained. Last week, her pre-trial detention was extended until at least July 2. Several lawmakers and prominent people, including LeBron James, have called on President Joe Biden to secure Griner’s release as soon as possible. Tangent
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Griner was detained for breaking Russia’s cannabis laws, and cannot be called a “hostage.” Further Reading
Kremlin Insists Brittney Griner Is Not A ‘Hostage’ After Extending Her Detention A Third Time (Forbes) Brittney Griner’s Russian Detention Reportedly Extended—Again—Through July (Forbes) LeBron James Calls On Biden To Bring Brittney Griner Home From Russia (Forbes) | Basketball |
Elon Musk Ex-Wife Backs Daughter's Last Name Change ... 'Very Proud of You!!!' 6/21/2022 8:44 AM PT Elon Musk's ex-wife is squarely in the corner of their daughter, saying she's proud of the 18-year-old ... amid her now very public rift with her father. Justine Wilson, a novelist who was married to Elon from 2000 to 2008, weighed in on Vivian's legal filing to have her gender identity changed to female, and to change her full name ... including dropping her dad's famous last name. She tweeted a convo she recently had with one of her children, and while Vivian has a twin brother, Griffin, the timing makes it pretty clear this was a chat with Vivian. Justine says her 18-year-old said, "I can't believe I'm as normal-seeming as I am," after having what she calls a "weird childhood." Justine replied, "I'm very proud of you," to which Vivian said, "I'm proud of myself!" The proud mother's tweet dropped right after the story broke about Vivian's desire to change her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson. What's interesting about Justin's very public support is that Vivian's made it clear she's got beef with Elon. In the docs she says, "I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form." Neither Elon nor Vivian previously said anything publicly about their relationship or her transition ... but back in December 2020, Elon tweeted he supports the transgender community, but added ... "All these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare." While Justin hasn't said anything directly about Elon yet, there's little doubt who she's backing in the daddy-daughter feud. | Celebrity |
Vince Staples Drake's Moving with Social Media ... End of Hip Hop Inevitable!!! 6/21/2022 8:54 AM PT Joe Budden TV Drake, and now Beyoncé too, are sending shockwaves through the music industry with new dance music releases ... which has Joe Budden and co. wondering if hip hop and R&B's days are numbered. Frequent 'Joe Budden Podcast' caller Vince Staples was around to answer one of these questions when the crew asked him to weigh in on Drake's decision to drop an album that's pretty much rap-less. Vince stated the internet and especially social media are making the call on what trends/sells. Basically, he says Drake's "Honestly, Nevermind" comes down to simple mathematics. At the end of the day, Vince feels we should all just accept the end of musical genres and just embrace the experience. To hammer home his point, he referenced his 2017 album "Big Fish Theory" ... a project that stood out for its EDM sound, but didn't get anywhere near the same amount of love. It's hard to deny Drake's latest 'W,' even if it's not rap -- he has the biggest dance album of all time, with beats from Black Coffee, Gordo, RY X and more. Pay attention in the future ... they might start popping on your fav rappers new tracks. 🤷🏽♂️ | Music |
XXXTentacion Fans Go Cross Country ... Paying Tribute on Death Anniversary 6/21/2022 12:30 AM PT XXXTentacion fans are going all out to show their love on the 4th anniversary of his murder, with some traveling thousands of miles just to mark the sad day. XXXTentacion's mother, Cleopatra Bernard, tells TMZ ... X's family, friends and dozens of his most hardcore fans gathered Saturday at his mausoleum in South Florida. We're told there was no planned event inviting fans there -- they all just came on their own to pay tribute on June 18. His mom says she was shocked to meet fans who made the drive all the way to FL, from places like Los Angeles and Virginia. Some of them started to gather outside as early as 9 AM ... and when Cleopatra arrived at the mausoleum around 4 PM to open it, there was still a good amount there. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. TMZ broke the story when 20-year-old XXXTentacion was shot dead, back in 2018, as he was leaving a motorcycle dealer in Broward County. X's mom estimates several hundred fans rolled through the cemetery, played X's music, adorned themselves in his merch -- and she says some even had replicas of his tattoos! BTW, that all went down in 95 humid south FL degrees ... so, these were dedicated fans. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. On Saturday night, the "SAD!" rapper's close family and friends held a candlelight vigil at his house, and Cleo selected 2 fans -- who'd driven cross country -- to join them for the solemn tribute. | Music |
Director Tom Gormican and Cage take IndieWire inside the making of an ambitious sequence that saw the star paying homage to the 1920 German Expressionist film he's long hailed as a personal favorite. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” was already the most meta movie released this year, but one scene cut from the theatrical release took the concept much further. In director Tom Gormican’s comedy, star Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself wrestling with a rough patch in his career, while being badgered by the imaginary “Nicky,” an abrasive manifestation of Cage’s younger self who mocks the actor for failing to achieve the greatness of his early days. In the original cut of the movie, Cage finally confronts his inner self in an ambitious black-and-white homage to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”
Cage has often cited the 1920 German Expressionist film as one of his favorites, and the opportunity to pay homage to its dream-like imagery was such a highlight of the experience that he continued to talk it up for the movie’s release, even though it didn’t make the final cut. “It was really wild and cool to me,” Cage told IndieWire in March. “I always designed my performances with the cinematic dream of getting back to silent film performance in general, and German Expressionism in particular.” Now, IndieWire can finally reveal the sequence in question, and it’s no joke: Cage finally gets to live out the “Caligari” fantasy of his dreams. Watch it below: The scene, which arrives late in the movie, finds Cage chasing his Nicky persona through “Caligari” sets in makeup reminiscent of Cesare, the murdering somnambulist at the center of the movie. The scene doubles as a pastiche of several Cage films as well: Cage confronts Nicky in a hall of mirrors reminiscent of “Face/Off” and chases him in a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 straight out of “Gone in 60 Seconds.” As Nicky flees up a ramp, the seats from the plane in “Con Air” are visible, and the confrontation ends in a cramped space that resembles the hotel room in “Leaving Las Vegas.”
For Gormican, the plot of “Dr. Caligari” — with its mad scientist exerting control over another body — made sense for the circumstances of his story. “The doctor’s got his thumb on this somnambulist and controlling his entire life,” Gormican told IndieWire in an interview this week. “I thought this was really interesting, because the younger version of ourselves often dictate who the older version is. In order for Nic to grow up, he needs to leave this person behind.”
Despite the brevity of the sequence, it proved to be one of the biggest technical undertakings of the production. Gormican and production designer Kevin Kavanaugh (“The Dark Knight Rises”) adopted the German Expressionism approach of using cardboard sets and painting the light and shadow onto the scene. Initially, the director also intended to shoot the sequence in 16mm with a camera from the actual era. Though cinematographer Nigel Bluck managed to track one down, the COVID-era production couldn’t handle the cost of shipping it to the set. “Very quickly, the studio was like, ‘Are you insane? We’re not going through this exercise during COVID,’” Gormican said. “But it got me thinking that we could keep this anamorphic.”
While Gormican was able to use anamorphic lens for the sequence, the camerawork was altered in another crucial fashion. While most German Expressionism films maintain a static camera, the filmmaker added some movement to certain key moments. Makeup veteran Bill Corso (“Star Wars: Episode IV – The Rise of Skywalker”) handled Cage’s Caligari makeup, while costume designer Paco Delgado (“The Skin I Live In,” “Les Miserables”) sorted out Cage’s outfit, which featured the turtleneck with two white stripes straight out of “Caligari.”
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”screenshot
“It was a combination of the new and the old,” Gormican said. “It was like creating a short film outside of the scope of the movie.”
The GT500 was built from scratch in an angular fashion so that the filmmaking team could light it from the inside. “It could sort of glow that way,” Gormican said. The car was set on rolling tires and was shot in a swirling image of light and shadows with a zoetrope powered by 20,000-watt bulbs. “We used three of them at once to create an action sequence onstage so that the angles make it look like they’re driving into the distance,” Gormican said. “It was really fun.”
Ultimately, Lionsgate decided that the sequence was too arty for a project it wanted to position in commercial terms. “Lionsgate was supporting us in making this film in general, which is sort of nuts,” Gormican said. “I applaud them for that. This part of it just happened to be a bridge too far.”
Nevertheless, he came out of the experience hoping to bring more visual flair to future comedy endeavors. “A lot of times when you’re making a comedy, it’s such an afterthought what the film could look like,” he said. He cited filmmakers like Ruben Ostlund and Edgar Wright as exceptions to the rule. “Certain people push the form forward,” Gormican said. “And there’s room for that, even if you’re always in service of the joke.”
Check out exclusive concept art for the sequence below. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is now available on VOD.
A deleted scene from “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”Lionsgate
A deleted scene from “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”Lionsgate
A deleted scene from “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”Lionsgate
A deleted scene from “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”Lionsgate
A deleted scene from “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”Lionsgate Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
Kalush Orchestra, the Ukrainian group who triumphed at the 2022 Eurovision song contest, are to perform at Glastonbury festival for their first ever UK concert.Their winning song Stefania blended hip-hop with the intricate flutes and heartfelt vocals of their national folk music, and saw a huge response from the public, who swept them to victory in the Eurovision phone voting – a clear demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine during the war with Russia.The sextet will appear at the Truth stage on Friday, in the festival’s fantastical, highly politicised Shangri-La area.Frontman Oleh Psiuk said: “This is the perfect place for our first ever British performance and we hope it will be the start of many in the UK. We are very grateful for all the support we receive from the people of Britain, both for us and our country, and we are preparing a very special Ukrainian surprise for the fans at Glastonbury. What is it? You’ll soon see.”Chris “Tofu” Macmeikan, director of Shangri-La, said it was a privilege to welcome the group, adding: “We’re honoured to have the chance to show our solidarity with Ukraine. On the Truth stage we have always championed Roma and Eastern European music, remixed for the 21st century, so they are the perfect fit.”Glastonbury welcomes another Ukrainian Eurovision act, 2021 entrants Go_A who came in fifth place (and were voted second in the public vote). The two groups share a band member, Ihor Didenchuk, and, like Kalush Orchestra, Go_A blend traditional Ukrainian songwriting with contemporary influences, resulting in an astonishing high-tempo fusion of folk and techno on their Eurovision entry song Shum. They perform on the John Peel stage at 11.30am on Saturday.Appearing on the Pyramid stage at 12.45, just before Herbie Hancock, is the Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha. Known for their striking stage outfits, and featuring three singers who studied as ethnomusicologists, the quartet use a globe-spanning variety of instruments to make stirring folk songs.At noon on Friday, a talk event on the Left Field stage, co-curated by Billy Bragg, will express solidarity with the people of Ukraine, with panellists including Ukrainian activists alongside the Guardian journalists Emma Graham-Harrison and John Harris, plus others.Kalush Orchestra expressed their disappointment this week at the proposal by Eurovision organisers that the 2023 contest – which normally would have been hosted in the winning country of Ukraine – will take place in the UK, due to security reasons.“Our team is very disappointed with the EBU’s decision and has high hopes that it is possible to change it,” Psiuk said. “We really want to hold this Eurovision song contest in Ukraine and our armed forces will do everything possible to make it safe for everyone. Just give us a little time and we will prove to you that everything will be as it should be.” | Music |
Getty Images, Eamonn M. McCormack Dave Chappelle says he’s opting against renaming a space at his alma mater after himself — as he defended a past controversial Netflix comedy special — instead choosing to give a nod to artistic freedom. “We call it the Theater for Artistic Freedom and Expression,” Chappelle told WRC-TV on Monday of the theater at Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, which the comedian attended. “Because to me, that’s what I would want for myself, and that’s what I would want for every student that goes to this school,” Chappelle, 48, said. “And I do feel like if that’s threatened, then the society at large is threatened. Then if artists feel stifled, then everyone’s stifled,” he added. “I feel like artists have a responsibility to really be true to their art right now,” he said. GLAAD and the National Black Justice Coalition were among the groups that condemned Chappelle’s 2021 Netflix special, “The Closer,” for its “transphobic” material. In the special, Chappelle mocked members of the transgender community and used crude terms to refer to a transgender person’s anatomy. Chappelle offered a defense of the TV project as he spoke at the arts school on Monday, and took a shot at the media’s coverage of it. “You cannot report on an artist’s work and remove artistic nuance,” Chappelle said, according to The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin. The 1991 Ellington graduate said when he’s told he “can’t say something,” the “more urgent” it is for him to say it. “It has nothing to do with what you are saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my freedom of artistic expression,” he said. Tags Dave Chappelle Dave Chappelle Duke Ellington School of the Arts netflix | Celebrity |
To a photon, the sun is like a crowded nightclub. It’s 27 million degrees inside and packed with excited bodies—helium atoms fusing, nuclei colliding, positrons sneaking off with neutrinos. When the photon heads for the exit, the journey there will take, on average, 100,000 years. (There’s no quick way to jostle past 10 septillion dancers, even if you do move at the speed of light.) Once at the surface, the photon might set off solo into the night. Or, if it emerges in the wrong place at the wrong time, it might find itself stuck inside a coronal mass ejection, a mob of charged particles with the power to upend civilizations.The cause of the ruckus is the sun’s magnetic field. Generated by the churning of particles in the core, it originates as a series of orderly north-to-south lines. But different latitudes on the molten star rotate at different rates—36 days at the poles, and only 25 days at the equator. Very quickly, those lines stretch and tangle, forming magnetic knots that can puncture the surface and trap matter beneath them. From afar, the resulting patches appear dark. They’re known as sunspots. Typically, the trapped matter cools, condenses into plasma clouds, and falls back to the surface in a fiery coronal rain. Sometimes, though, the knots untangle spontaneously, violently. The sunspot turns into the muzzle of a gun: Photons flare in every direction, and a slug of magnetized plasma fires outward like a bullet.The sun has played this game of Russian roulette with the solar system for billions of years, sometimes shooting off several coronal mass ejections in a day. Most come nowhere near Earth. It would take centuries of human observation before someone could stare down the barrel while it happened. At 11:18 am on September 1, 1859, Richard Carrington, a 33-year-old brewery owner and amateur astronomer, was in his private observatory, sketching sunspots—an important but mundane act of record-keeping. That moment, the spots erupted into a blinding beam of light. Carrington sprinted off in search of a witness. When he returned, a minute later, the image had already gone back to normal. Carrington spent that afternoon trying to make sense of the aberration. Had his lens caught a stray reflection? Had an undiscovered comet or planet passed between his telescope and the star? While he stewed, a plasma bomb silently barreled toward Earth at several million miles per hour.ILLUSTRATION: MARK PERNICEWhen a coronal mass ejection comes your way, what matters most is the bullet’s magnetic orientation. If it has the same polarity as Earth’s protective magnetic field, you’ve gotten lucky: The two will repel, like a pair of bar magnets placed north-to-north or south-to-south. But if the polarities oppose, they will smash together. That’s what happened on September 2, the day after Carrington saw the blinding beam.Electrical current raced through the sky over the western hemisphere. A typical bolt of lightning registers 30,000 amperes. This geomagnetic storm registered in the millions. As the clock struck midnight in New York City, the sky turned scarlet, shot through with plumes of yellow and orange. Fearful crowds gathered in the streets. Over the continental divide, a bright-white midnight aurora roused a group of Rocky Mountain laborers; they assumed morning had arrived and began to cook breakfast. In Washington, DC, sparks leaped from a telegraph operator’s forehead to his switchboard as his equipment suddenly magnetized. Vast sections of the nascent telegraph system overheated and shut down.The Carrington Event, as it’s known today, is considered a once-in-a-century geomagnetic storm—but it took just six decades for another comparable blast to reach Earth. In May 1921, train-control arrays in the American Northeast and telephone stations in Sweden caught fire. In 1989, a moderate storm, just one-tenth the strength of the 1921 event, left Quebec in the dark for nine hours after overloading the regional grid. In each of these cases, the damage was directly proportional to humanity’s reliance on advanced technology—more grounded electronics, more risk.When another big one heads our way, as it could at any time, existing imaging technology will offer one or two days’ notice. But we won’t understand the true threat level until the cloud reaches the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a satellite about a million miles from Earth. It has instruments that analyze the speed and polarity of incoming solar particles. If a cloud’s magnetic orientation is dangerous, this $340 million piece of equipment will buy humanity—with its 7.2 billion cell phones, 1.5 billion automobiles, and 28,000 commercial aircraft—at most one hour of warning before impact.ILLUSTRATION: MARK PERNICEActivity on the solar surface follows a cycle of roughly 11 years. At the beginning of each cycle, clusters of sunspots form at the middle latitudes of both solar hemispheres. These clusters grow and migrate toward the equator. Around the time they’re most active, known as solar maximum, the sun’s magnetic field flips polarity. The sunspots wane, and solar minimum comes. Then it happens all over again. “I don’t know why it took 160 years of cataloging data to realize that,” says Scott McIntosh, a blunt-speaking Scottish astrophysicist who serves as deputy director of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. “It hits you right in the fucking face.”Today, in the 25th solar cycle since regular record-keeping began, scientists don’t have much to show beyond that migration pattern. They don’t fully understand why the poles flip. They cannot explain why some sunspot cycles are as short as nine years while others last 14. They cannot reliably predict how many sunspots will form or where coronal mass ejections will occur. What is clear is that a big one can happen in any kind of cycle: In the summer of 2012, during the historically quiet Cycle 24, two mammoth coronal mass ejections narrowly missed Earth. Still, a more active cycle increases the chances of that near miss becoming a direct hit.Without a guiding theory of solar dynamics, scientists tend to take a statistical approach, relying on strong correlations and after-the-fact rationales to make their predictions. One of the more influential models, which offers respectable predictive power, uses the magnetic strength of the sun’s polar regions as a proxy for the vigor of the following cycle. In 2019, a dozen scientists empaneled by NASA predicted that the current solar cycle will peak with 115 sunspots in July 2025—well below the historical average of 179.McIntosh, who was not invited to join the NASA panel, calls this “made-up physics.” He believes the old-school models are concerned with the wrong thing—sunspots, rather than the processes that create them. “The magnetic cycle is what you should be trying to model, not the derivative of it,” he says. “You have to explain why sunspots magically appear at 30 degrees latitude.”McIntosh’s attempt to do that goes back to 2002, when, at the behest of a postdoctoral mentor, he began plotting tiny ultraviolet concentrations on the solar surface, known as brightpoints. “I think my boss knew what I would find if I let a full cycle pass,” he recalls. “By 2011, I was like, holy fuck.” He found that brightpoints originate at higher latitudes than sunspots do but follow the same path to the equator. To him, this implied that sunspots and brightpoints are twin effects of the same underlying phenomenon, one not found in astrophysics textbooks.His grand unified theory, developed over a decade, goes something like this: Every 11 years, when the sun’s polarity flips, a magnetic band forms near each pole, wrapped around the circumference of the star. These bands exist for a couple of decades, slowly migrating toward the equator, where they meet in mutual destruction. At any given time, there are usually two oppositely charged bands in each hemisphere. They counteract each other, which promotes relative calm at the surface. But magnetic bands don’t all live to be the same age. Some reach what McIntosh calls “the terminator” with unusual speed. When this happens, the younger bands are left alone for a few years, without the moderating influence of the older bands, and they have a chance to raise hell.McIntosh and his colleague Mausumi Dikpati believe that terminator timing is the key to forecasting sunspots—and, by extension, coronal mass ejections. The faster one set of bands dies out, the more dramatic the next cycle will be.The most recent terminator, their data suggests, happened on December 13, 2021. In the days that followed, magnetic activity near the sun’s equator dissipated (signaling the death of one set of bands) while the number of sunspots at midlatitude rapidly doubled (signaling the solo reign of the remaining bands). Because this terminator arrived slightly sooner than expected, McIntosh predicts above-average activity for the current solar cycle, peaking at around 190 sunspots.A clear victor in the modeling wars could emerge later this year. But McIntosh is already thinking ahead to the next thing—tools that can detect where a sunspot will emerge and how likely it is to burst. He yearns for a set of satellites orbiting the sun—a few at the poles and a few around the equator, like the ones used to forecast terrestrial weather. The price tag for such an early-warning system would be modest, he argues: eight craft at roughly $30 million each. But will anyone fund it? “I think until Cycle 25 goes bananas,” he says, “nobody’s going to give a shit.”When the next solar storm approaches Earth and the deep-space satellite provides its warning—maybe an hour in advance, or maybe 15 minutes, if the storm is fast-moving—alarms will sound on crewed spacecraft. Astronauts will proceed to cramped modules lined with hydrogen-rich materials like polyethylene, which will prevent their DNA from being shredded by protons in the plasma. They may float inside for hours or days, depending on how long the storm endures.The plasma will begin to flood Earth’s ionosphere, and the electron bombardment will cause high-frequency radio to go dark. GPS signals, which are transmitted via radio waves, will fade with it. Cell phone reception zones will shrink; your location bubble on Google Maps will expand. As the atmosphere heats up, it will swell, and satellites will drag, veer off course, and risk collision with each other and space debris. Some will fall out of orbit entirely. Most new satellites are equipped to endure some solar radiation, but in a strong enough storm, even the fanciest circuit board can fry. When navigation and communication systems fail, the commercial airline fleet—about 10,000 planes in the sky at any given time—will attempt a simultaneous grounding. Pilots will eyeball themselves into a flight pattern while air traffic controllers use light signals to guide the planes in. Those living near military installations may see government aircraft scrambling overhead; when radar systems jam, nuclear defense protocols activate.Through a weird and nonintuitive property of electromagnetism, the electricity coursing through the atmosphere will begin to induce currents at Earth’s surface. As those currents race through the crust, they will seek the path of least resistance. In regions with resistive rock (in the US, especially the Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes, and Eastern Seaboard), the most convenient route is upward, through the electrical grid.The weakest points in the grid are its intermediaries—machines called transformers, which take low-voltage current from a power plant, convert it to a higher voltage for cheap and efficient transport, and convert it back down again so that it can be piped safely to your wall outlets. The largest transformers, numbering around 2,000 in the United States, are firmly anchored into the ground, using Earth’s crust as a sink for excess voltage. But during a geomagnetic storm, that sink becomes a source. Most transformers are only built to handle alternating current, so storm-induced direct current can cause them to overheat, melt, and even ignite. As one might expect, old transformers are at higher risk of failure. The average American transformer is 40 years old, pushed beyond its intended lifespan.Modeling how the grid would fail during another Carrington-class storm is no easy task. The features of individual transformers—age, configuration, location—are typically considered trade secrets. Metatech, an engineering firm frequently contracted by the US government, offers one of the more dire estimates. It finds that a severe storm, on par with events in 1859 or 1921, could destroy 365 high-voltage transformers across the country—about one-fifth of those in operation. States along the East Coast could see transformer failure rates ranging from 24 percent (Maine) to 97 percent (New Hampshire). Grid failure on this scale would leave at least 130 million people in the dark. But the exact number of fried transformers may matter less than their location. In 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported findings from an unreleased Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report on grid security: If just nine transformers were to blow out in the wrong places, it found, the country could experience coast-to-coast outages for months.Prolonged national grid failure is new territory for humankind. Documents from an assortment of government agencies and private organizations paint a dismal picture of what that would look like in the United States. Homes and offices will lose heating and cooling; water pressure in showers and faucets will drop. Subway trains will stop mid-voyage; city traffic will creep along unassisted by stoplights. Oil production will grind to a halt, and so will shipping and transportation. The blessing of modern logistics, which allows grocery stores to stock only a few days’ worth of goods, will become a curse. Pantries will thin out within a few days. The biggest killer, though, will be water. Fifteen percent of treatment facilities in the country serve 75 percent of the population—and they rely on energy-intensive pumping systems. These pumps not only distribute clean water but also remove the disease- and chemical-tainted sludge constantly oozing into sewage facilities. Without power, these waste systems could overflow, contaminating remaining surface water.As the outage goes on, health care facilities will grow overwhelmed. Sterile supplies will run low, and caseloads will soar. When backup batteries and generators fail or run out of power, perishable medications like insulin will spoil. Heavy medical hardware—dialysis machines, imaging devices, ventilators—will cease to function, and hospital wards will resemble field clinics. With death tolls mounting and morgues losing refrigeration, municipalities will face grave decisions about how to safely handle bodies.This is roughly the point in the worst-case scenario when the meltdowns at nuclear power plants begin. These facilities require many megawatts of electricity to cool their reactor cores and spent fuel rods. Today, most American plants run their backup systems on diesel. Koroush Shirvan, a nuclear safety expert at MIT, warns that many reactors could run into trouble if outages last longer than a few weeks.ILLUSTRATION: MARK PERNICEIf you thumb through enough government reports on geomagnetic storms, you’ll find that one name comes up almost every time: John G. Kappenman. He has published 50 scientific papers, spoken before Congress and NATO, and advised half a dozen federal agencies and commissions. The soft-spoken utility veteran is the man behind the cataclysmic Metatech projections, and he is either a visionary or an alarmist, depending on whom you ask. Kappenman spent the first two decades of his career climbing the ladder at Minnesota Power, learning the ins and outs of the utility industry. In 1998, he joined Metatech, where he advised governments and energy companies on space weather and grid resilience.His end-of-days predictions first gained national traction in 2010, setting off such alarm that the Department of Homeland Security enlisted JASON, an elite scientific advisory group, to pull together a counter-study. “We are not convinced that Kappenman’s worst-case scenario is possible,” the authors concluded in their 2011 report. Notably, however, JASON did not challenge Kappenman’s work on its merits, nor did the group offer a competing model. Rather, its objections were rooted in the fact that Metatech’s models are proprietary, and utility industry secrecy makes it hard to run national grid simulations. Still, the authors echoed Kappenman’s essential conclusion: The US grid is dramatically underprepared for a major storm, and operators should take immediate action to harden their transformers.The good news is that a technical fix already exists. Mitigating this threat could be as simple as outfitting vulnerable transformers with capacitors, relatively inexpensive devices that block the flow of direct current. During the 1989 storm in Quebec, the grid fell offline and stopped conducting electricity before the current could inflict widespread damage. One close call was enough, though. In the years after, Canada spent more than $1 billion on reliability upgrades, including capacitors for its most vulnerable transformers. “To cover the entirety of the US, you’re probably in the ballpark of a few billion dollars,” Kappenman says. “If you spread that cost out, it would equal a postage stamp per year per customer.” A 2020 study by the Foundation for Resilient Societies arrived at a similar figure for comprehensive grid hardening: about $500 million a year for 10 years.To date, however, American utility companies haven’t widely deployed current-blocking devices to the live grid. “They’ve only done things, like moving to higher and higher operating voltages”—for cheaper transmission—“that greatly magnify their vulnerability to these storms,” Kappenman tells me.Tom Berger, former director of the US government’s Space Weather Prediction Center, also expressed doubts about grid operators. “When I talk to them, they tell me they understand space weather, and they’re ready,” he says. But Berger’s confidence waned after the February 2021 collapse of the Texas power grid, which killed hundreds of people, left millions of homes and businesses without heat, and caused about $200 billion in damage. That crisis was brought on by nothing more exotic than a big cold snap. “We heard the same thing,” Berger says. “‘We understand winter; it’s no problem.’”I reached out to 12 of the country’s largest utility companies, requesting information on specific steps taken to mitigate damage from a major geomagnetic event. American Electric Power, the country’s largest transmission network, was the only company to share concrete measures, which it says include regularly upgrading hardware, redirecting current during a storm, and quickly replacing equipment after an event. Two other companies, Consolidated Edison and Exelon, claim to have outfitted their systems with geomagnetic monitoring sensors and be instructing their operators in unspecified “procedures.” Florida Power & Light declined to meaningfully comment, citing security risks. The other eight did not respond to multiple requests for comment.At this point, curious minds may wonder whether utility companies are even required to plan for geomagnetic storms. The answer is complicated, in a uniquely American way. In 2005, when George W. Bush, a former oil executive, occupied the Oval Office, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which included a grab bag of giveaways to the oil and gas industry. It rescinded much of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to regulate the utility industry. Reliability standards are now developed and enforced by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation—a trade association that represents the interests of those same companies.Some find the NERC reliability standards laughable. (Two interviewees audibly laughed when asked about them.) Kappenman objected to the first set of standards, proposed in 2015, on the grounds that they were too lenient—they didn’t require utilities to prepare for a storm on par with 1859 or 1921. Berger took issue too, but for a different reason: The standards made no mention of storm duration. The ground-based effects of the Carrington Event lasted four or five consecutive days; a transformer built to withstand 10 seconds of current is very different from one ready for 120 hours.Under pressure from the federal government, NERC enacted stricter standards in 2019. In a lengthy written statement, Rachel Sherrard, a spokeswoman for the group, emphasized that American utilities are now expected to deal with an event twice as strong as the 1989 Quebec storm. (Comparison with an old storm like Carrington, she noted, “is challenging because high-fidelity historical measurement data is not available.”) Though the new standards require utilities to fix vulnerabilities in their systems, the companies themselves determine the right approach—and the timeline.If the utilities remain unmotivated, humanity’s ability to withstand a major geomagnetic storm will depend largely on our ability to replace damaged transformers. A 2020 investigation by the US Department of Commerce found that the nation imported more than 80 percent of its large transformers and their components. Under normal supply and demand conditions, lead times for these structures can reach two years. “People outside the industry don’t understand how difficult these things are to manufacture,” Kappenman says. Insiders know not to buy a transformer unless the factory that made it is at least 10 years old. “It takes that long to work out the kinks,” he says. In a time of solar crisis, foreign governments—even geopolitical allies—may throttle exports of vital electrical equipment, Kappenman notes. Some spare-part programs have cropped up over the past decade that allow participants to pool resources in various disaster scenarios. The size and location of these spares, however, are unknown to federal authorities—because the industry won’t tell them.One day regulators may manage to map the electrical grid, even stormproof it (provided a big one doesn’t wipe it out first). Engineers may launch a satellite array that gives us days to batten down the hatches. Governments may figure out a way to stand up emergency transformers in a pinch. And there the sun will be—the inconceivable, inextinguishable furnace at the center of our solar system that destroys as indiscriminately as it creates. Life on this little mote depends entirely on the mercy of a cosmic nuclear power with an itchy trigger finger. No human triumph will ever change that. (But we should still buy the capacitors. Soon, please.)Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at [email protected]. | Space Exploration |
Gary Lineker has said that he suffered racist abuse at school and during his football career because of his “darkish skin”.The Match of the Day host and former England striker, 61, said that as a “tiny, geeky kid” in Leicester he would have been bullied without football. He said he was racially abused a “couple of times” as a professional footballer.Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Lineker said: “Without being good at sport, life would have been very different for me because I think I would have been bullied at school. I was kind of marginally that way anyway because I was this tiny geeky kid, with darkish skin, and I had pretty much racist abuse although I’m not. I’m as English | Soccer |
Eastenders actress Jessie Wallace has broken cover following her arrest outside a nightclub over the weekend, as BBC bosses issue her with a 'clear warning'.The star was seen for the first time since the incident leaving North London home today, getting into a black car while wearing dark sunglasses. BBC chiefs have confirmed that she will be able to keep her job, after speculation over her future, with the star expressing 'her deep regret'.Jessie, who is best known for playing barmaid Kat Slater, is said to have 'told a police officer to 'f*** off you fat c***' during five minutes of carnage' in Bury St Edmunds on Sunday. She is also accused of kneeing the officer in the groin during the incident, leaving him on his knees in agony.Footage released last night showed the moment Wallace was detained following a 'drunken' night out, with witnesses claiming she had been kicked out of Flex nightclub for being 'gobby'.The actress was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution, and has now been seen for the first time since the incident.Wearing large sunglasses to cover her face, with her hair up in a ponytail the actress tried to keep a low profile while getting into her vehicle. Eastenders bosses have confirmed that the star will be allowed to keep her job on the soap, as she broke cover for the first time outside of her North London home Corporation chiefs were 'concerned' by the revelations - the latest controversy in a troubled career which saw her suspended from EastEnders just two years ago following an 'incident while filming'. A BBC spokesman told MailOnline says: 'Senior bosses have spoken to Jessie Wallace about the incident and issued a clear warning that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable and Jessie has expressed her deep regret.' This incident is the latest in a series of troubles for Wallace, who has been suspended from work before, with reports claiming she was boozing on set in 2020, forcing bosses to write her out of a number of episodes.She was also found guilty of drink driving in 2003, which resulted in a £1,000 fine and a three-year ban from sitting behind the wheel. Video has emerged of EastEnders actress Jessie Wallace being arrested outside a nightclub The star, who is known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap, was detained in the early hours of Sunday morning on suspicion of assaulting a police officer as well as drunk and disorderly conduct in Bury St Edmunds Footage shows the star, best known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap, being arrested by officers outside a Burger King in Bury St Edmunds, in the early hours of Sunday She was later released without charge by Suffolk Police after receiving a conditional caution. A Suffolk Police spokesman told MailOnline today: 'A 50-year-old woman was arrested early on Sunday morning in St Andrew's Street, Bury St Edmunds, on suspicion of assaulting a police officer / drunk and disorderly conduct and was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution.' Wallace was out at Flex nightclub at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk on Saturday night (file picture)Jessie Wallace arrested after 'drunken' night out: Eastenders star's previous encounters with the law and her co-starsFootage has shown the moment Jessie Wallace was arrested outside a nightclub after allegedly attacking a police officer following a 'drunken' night out.But it is not the first time the EastEnders star has had a run-in with law enforcement.Wallace was banned from driving for three years and fined £1,000 in 2003 for an offence of drink driving. Police stopped the then 32-year-old in Chelmsford, Essex, in March after she was caught breaking the speed limit in her £32,000 silver Mercedes.She was one and a half times the legal limit, with tests revealing 51mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.Wallace claimed she had been drinking wine, which someone had 'laced' with vodka. However a judge rejected her claim and banned her for three years.A three-year ban was imposed because it was her second drink-related driving offence. Former colleague Barbara Windsor also revealed how she had a blazing row with Wallace when working together on the EastEnders set. Windsor said she had lost her temper because then 39-year-old Wallace, kept her waiting.'Jessie Wallace was the first time I erupted. She was late, she was young. She's not like that any more. I lost my temper,' said Barbara. In 2017, Wallace was also filmed launching an expletive-ridden tirade after being reportedly kicked out of a pub. Video filmed by the Old Eagle in Camden, north London, showed the soap star with a friend shouting 'f**** you' at a man who had accused her of creating a disturbance inside.In December, she appeared strained as she spoke to police near her London home alongside her daughter Tallulah, 16.Wallace emerged in her slippers to speak to two police officers, who parked their squad car in the middle of a suburban street on December 28.She was flanked by Tallulah, who she shares with Mr Morgan, as they engaged in the strained conversation with the law-enforcement officers.The actress previously blasted Met Police's failure to investigate when Tallulah was mugged in north London in 2018. Wallace also suffered heartbreak in 2011 as she called off her wedding to fiancé Vincent Morse after he allegedly sent his ex-girlfriend an explicit picture of the soap star.During the incident on Sunday, it is claimed she kneed the officer in the groin before she was arrested and placed into a police van. Earlier in the day Wallace had been with her new builder boyfriend watching a Madness gig at Thetford Forest, Brandon - where she posed for photographs with fans.The star was later detained on suspicion of assaulting a police officer as well as drunk and disorderly conduct.A witness said: 'It was truly shocking behaviour. She was out of control. It was worse than anything Kat Slater has done.'She was a one-woman rampage. It was five minutes of carnage. The police dealt with it very well.' But she was later released without charge by Suffolk Police after receiving a conditional caution.On Monday a Suffolk Police spokesman told MailOnline: 'A 50-year-old woman was arrested early on Sunday morning in St Andrew's Street, Bury St Edmunds, on suspicion of assaulting a police officer/drunk and disorderly conduct and was released without charge after receiving a conditional caution.'The force would not confirm she was arrested, while neither her agent nor manager responded to a request for comment. The arrest was first reported by The Sun.One witness told MailOnline how Wallace was arrested after being kicked-out of the club for being 'gobby'.The witness said: 'She was acting very drunken disorderly, assaulting police officers and swearing constantly.'She then went on to shout out, 'I hope this is all entertainment for you c***s', whilst barging through the middle of our group. She then ended up banging on the door of the police wagon she was in. 'Bouncers had chucked her out due to how gobby and annoying she was being to others.'Earlier this month, Wallace was pictured outside a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards.The star was wearing a glitzy top with bright white trousers and no shoes as she left the party in east London.It comes after Wallace revealed she had been dating her builder boyfriend for a year.It was previously reported that Wallace had fallen for the workman after booking him for a job, but the star has since clarified they've known each other far longer.In May, she shared an Instagram that they had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance.Predicting that it will be a long-term union, a source told The Mirror: 'It's like a plotline from the soap – a classic Kat escapade. Jessie seems to be over the moon.' The NTA winner laughed up a storm as she chatted with him in the Transit in May.She split with her last boyfriend, father of five Paul Kempin in 2019 after a two year relationship and, before that, was dumped by musician Tim Arnold in 2016.Wallace had been dating the singer since 2012, but he claimed to have become 'tired' of the limelight at the time.Before she began a relationship with Tim, the award-winning actress was engaged to catering boss Vince Morse, but she called off their wedding after she found out he'd sent raunchy texts to a former lover the night before their wedding day.Wallace, originally from Enfield, north London, joined EastEnders in 2000 having featured in The Bill a year earlier.She played the role of barmaid Kat Slater, the partner of popular character Alfie Moon - played by Shane Richie. She quickly became a fan favourite.The pair had a five-year break from the screen before returning in the autumn of 2010 for another stint on the popular soap.They left again for six months in 2015 to film their own BBC One drama, Kat & Alfie: Redwater. Earlier in the day Wallace had been with her new builder boyfriend watching a Madness gig (pictured) at Thetford Forest, Brandon - where she posed for photographs with fans In May, she shared an Instagram that her and her boyfriend (pictured together at the Madness concert) had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance Dating: The EastEnders star shared on Instagram that they had known each other for 34 years before commencing their romance Her man: It was previously reported that Jessie fell for the workman after booking him for a job, but the star has since clarified they've known each other far longer Jessie Wallace outside a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards in London on June 11 Jessie Wallace (left) at a party in Hackney after the British Soap Awards in London on June 11 Jessie Wallace, pictured at the National Television Awards at The O2 in London in January 2019 Wallace is known for playing Kat Slater in the BBC soap EastEnders (pictured in August 2021)In the series Kate and Alfie go to the fiction Irish town of Redwater to 'search for answers to some very big questions' and put their past behind them. After the six-part drama, Wallace returned to EastEnders as Kat in 2018. In early 2020, Wallace was suspended from EastEnders again by the BBC, with a two-month suspension incurred due to an 'incident while filming'.She was said to have been summoned to a meeting with bosses of the show who ordered her to 'sort herself out' before returning. It is not the first time Wallace has had a run-in with the law. She was banned from driving for three years and fined £1,000 in 2003 for an offence of drink driving.Police stopped the then 32-year-old in Chelmsford, Essex, in March after she was caught breaking the speed limit in her £32,000 silver Mercedes.She was one and a half times the legal limit, with tests revealing 51mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.Wallace claimed she had been drinking wine, which someone had 'laced' with vodka. However a judge rejected her claim and banned her for three years.A three-year ban was imposed because it was her second drink-related driving offence. The actress recently became a grandmother after her 17-year-old daughter Tallulah gave birth to a boy. | Celebrity |
Christian Bale may have left DC for the MCU, but the “Dark Knight” star actually didn’t even know what the acronym meant before joining “Thor: Love and Thunder” — or that he had entered any kind of “cinematic universe” at all.
Oscar-winner Bale told Total Film that he did “absolutely not” hesitate to take on another superhero role after Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
“That didn’t even enter into my head at all,” Bale said. “I’d read that, and people would go, ‘Oh, look at this! He’s entered the MCU!‘ And I’d go, ‘I’ve done what? I haven’t entered shit, thank you very much.’ I’m like, ‘The MCU?’ I had to ask what that was.”
Bale plays villain Gorr the God Butcher in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” but Taika Waititi’s self-described “craziest” film didn’t take Gorr too seriously, despite his sinister appearance. “There’s obviously sort of a Nosferatu slight attitude,” Bale explained. “You sort of go, ‘I know what he does.’ It’s right there in the name, isn’t it? But I did make the mistake of Googling him and, oh no! [In the comics] he runs around in a G-string all the time. And I thought, ‘They don’t have the right man for that!’ And then Taika quickly dispelled any notions of running around in that. But I always did think what he could do with this in front of a bluescreen – he could chuck on whatever he wants later on.” Waititi and Bale also channeled beloved singer Kate Bush, recently resurging in “Stranger Things,” as well as experimental electronic musician Aphex Twin.
“Taika and I wanted to do a whole dance, which we didn’t get to do, but we had all this sort of Kate Bush stuff that we worked at,” Bale added. “But I think he just realized he was never going to be allowed to put that in the final film. I would say that the most common thing I was staring at was the Aphex Twin video of ‘Come To Daddy’. But I don’t even know if that will be in the final film.”
“Thor: Love and Thunder” will be released in theaters July 8. Writer/director Waititi previously said that the cast “definitely feel like we put everything — every idea and every single ridiculous concept or gag or stunt or character — into this film,” adding, “I couldn’t be happier with it.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
Comedian Joe Lycett has revealed he has been investigated by police - after a person who watched one of his tour shows complained over what they deemed to be an offensive joke.The star said this involved him writing a statement to explain the context of his on-stage joke to officers, which meant he had to put the words "giant donkey d***" into a message to the force in question.
Thankfully, Lycett said the matter had since been closed.He has been touring his More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett? shows since March, playing to audiences in Plymouth, Bournemouth, Edinburgh, York, Hull, Ipswich, Sheffield, Glasgow, Stockton, Newcastle, Cambridge, Stockport, Liverpool, Northampton, Birmingham, Belfast, and Cardiff so far.However, he did not say which tour show led to the police complaint. In a message posted on social media, Lycett said: "So someone came to my tour show a few weeks back and was offended by one of the jokes. And their perfectly understandable response to this was… to call the f****** police.
"To be fair to them the fuzz were very nice about it all but felt they had a duty to investigate. This involved me writing a statement explaining the context of the joke for them; I particularly enjoyed putting the words 'giant donkey d*** into a message to a police detective. "Charmed, and hopefully amused, the rozzers have since closed the matter. You'll be pleased to know that the joke - which I consider to be one of the best I've ever written - remains firmly and proudly in the show."And for fans who have tickets to see upcoming shows - set for London, Leicester, Manchester, Brighton and more venues across the UK and Ireland - don't worry."The tour continues until September, unless I am jailed," Lycett added.The comedian also shared what was apparently an email from the investigating police force about the matter, which said: "Firstly thanks for your help today, it is very much appreciated."I can confirm that police now consider this matter closed. Thank you."This is not the first time Lycett has caused a stir with authorities, after writing a spoof Sue Gray report into alleged parties at Downing Street earlier in 2022.In 2021, he staged a stunt outside Shell's HQ in London to campaign against the company's "greenwashing". And the previous year, he said he had changed his name to Hugo Boss after the designer targeted small businesses using the name "boss". | Celebrity |
Ed Sheeran and his Shape Of You co-songwriters have been awarded more than £900,000 in legal fees after winning their copyright trial over "baseless" claims about the hit earlier this year.Sheeran and two of his co-writers - Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid and producer Steve McCutcheon, known as Steve Mac - had been accused of plagiarising part of a track called Oh Why by Sami Chokri, a grime artist who performs as Sami Switch, and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue.
But in April, following a High Court trial in March, the judge who heard the case ruled that the star "neither deliberately nor subconsciously" ripped off a hook from the song when writing the "Oh I" phrase for Shape Of You. Image: British singer-songwriter Sami Chokri, known as Sami Switch, alleged a phrase in Shape Of You copied part of his 2015 song Oh Why In the latest ruling, Mr Justice Zacaroli has now said the lesser-known songwriters should pay the legal costs for the case, ordering an interim payment of £916,200 - an amount which is expected to be assessed and finalised at a further hearing.After Sheeran won the case, lawyers for Chokri and O'Donoghue argued that the star and the other claimants should pay their own legal costs, claiming they had failed to provide documents and demonstrated "awkwardness and opacity". However, making the order for costs on Tuesday, the judge said: "I consider it is appropriate that the claimants' success is reflected in an order that their costs are paid by the defendants, without reduction save for that which is made as part of the process of detailed assessment."
He also dismissed arguments that Chokri and O'Donoghue would have changed their approach to the case if some documents and explanations about how Shape Of You was written had been provided earlier. More on Ed Sheeran Ed Sheeran crowned UK's most-played artist of 2021 - and also wins accolade for most-played single Ed Sheeran: Singer says he is "over the moon" at birth of second baby girl Shakira, Ed Sheeran and Dave among winners at 67th annual Ivors Awards in London "None of the disclosure or explanations, once provided to the defendants, caused them to alter their approach at all," Mr Justice Zacaroli said."Instead, they not only maintained their attack on Mr Sheeran but broadened it by asserting that he was a 'magpie' who habitually misappropriated song ideas from other writers." Image: After hearing the evidence, the judge found in Sheeran's favour. Pic: Elizabeth Cook/PA Legal proceedings were initially launched by Sheeran, his co-authors and their music companies in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O'Donoghue's copyright.Chokri and O'Donoghue issued their own claim two months later, for "copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement".However, after hearing the evidence in the trial, Mr Justice Zacaroli dismissed the counterclaim.In a video statement released after the judgment was handed down, Sheeran told fans that "baseless" copyright claims were "damaging" to the songwriting industry. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 'I am not a corporation' "I'm not a corporation. I'm a human being," he said. "I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope with this ruling, it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided."Shape Of You, from the star's Divide album, is his biggest hit - with some 5.26 million chart sales (sales and streams combined) as of November 2021, according to Official Charts. It spent 13 consecutive weeks at number one in 2017 - the UK's best-selling song of the year - and is the UK's most-streamed song of all time.Some £2.2m in royalties was frozen during the dispute, the High Court heard during the 11-day trial in central London.The allegations against Sheeran and his co-writers Image: Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid is one of the co-writers of Sheeran's hit Shape Of You Chokri and O'Donoghue claimed the central "Oh I" hook in Shape Of You is "strikingly similar" to the "Oh Why" refrain in their own composition, with Chokri telling the court he felt "robbed" after he heard it.However, Sheeran, McDaid and McCutcheon all denied being aware of Oh Why prior to writing Shape Of You.During two days spent in the witness box giving evidence, Sheeran told the court he is not an artist who "alters" words and music belonging to others to "pass as original", and refuted an allegation that he "borrows" ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledgement.He told the court he "always tried to be completely fair" in crediting people who contribute to his music. The star also denied using litigation to "intimidate" the less-famous songwriters, saying he was in court simply to "clear my name".What did the judge say? Image: Ross O'Donoghue co-wrote Oh Why with Chokri Following the hearing, the judge concluded that while there are "similarities" between the OW (Oh Why) hook and the OI (Oh I) phrase, there are also "significant differences" and that "such similarities are, however, only a starting point for a possible infringement action".He also said that "compelling evidence" had been provided to show that Shape Of You "originated from sources other than 'Oh Why'", and that claims Sheeran had heard the song before writing his own were "no more" than "speculative".Sky News has contacted representatives for Chokri for comment on the costs ruling. | Music |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Deshaun Watson agreed to a confidential settlement with 20 of his 24 sexual misconduct accusers, an attorney for the women said Tuesday."Today I announce that all cases against Deshaun Watson, with the exception of four, have settled," Tony Buzbee said in a statement. "We are working through the paperwork related to those settlements. Once we have done so, those particular cases will be dismissed. The terms and amounts of the settlements are confidential. We won’t comment further on the settlements or those cases."This is a breaking news story check back for updates. Ryan Gaydos is the sports editor for Fox News and Fox Business. Story tips can be sent to [email protected]. | Other Sports |
If you haven’t heard it yet, Bradley Cooper’s recent appearance on the SmartLess podcast is a total doozy. Not only does he reveal he was once heavily addicted to cocaine – and that he ended the habit when one of the podcast’s hosts, Will Arnett, called him an “asshole” – but more importantly he outs himself as an all-time world class grudge-holder.During the episode he recounts a time at an awards season party, while riding high on his multiple nominations for A Star Is Born, when he ran into a “dear friend” actress and a famous director: “[The director] was like, ‘What world are we living in where you have seven nominations and she’s only got three?’ I was like, ‘I fucking hate this business.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, why are you such an asshole? Like, go fuck yourself.’”Now there are two ways of looking at this. One is to use Cooper’s story as a learning opportunity. After all, we are talking about a performer at the very top of his game here, yet he still finds himself riddled with as much anguish and self-doubt as the rest of us. The reasonable and empathetic response would be to realise that our words have weight and to try and act with kindness wherever possible.But that’s boring, so let’s play Hunt the Asshole Director instead. That’s much more fun, right?So, we know this incident took place during the 2019 awards season. That helps with the other unknown figure in the story, Cooper’s actress friend. This was the year Emma Stone gained her third nomination for The Favourite (following her La La Land win), and don’t forget that she co-starred with Cooper in Aloha in 2015. True, other actresses had three Oscar nominations in 2019. He could have been talking about Natalie Portman or Marisa Tomei or the vengeful ghost of Claudette Colbert, but Stone seems the most likely bet.Now the asshole director. We have two key pieces of information: the fact that this incident took place at an awards season party and the fact that Bradley Cooper called him “bro”. Although Hollywood isn’t exactly short of obnoxious directors, let’s boil things down to the directors most likely to attend an awards season party: the ones with nominations. The best director winner that year was Alfonso Cuarón, but let’s rule him out as well. Like most actors, Bradley Cooper would sell his parents to appear in a Cuarón film, so by this measure he fails the bro test.Who does that leave? Paweł Pawlikowski was nominated for Cold War but he probably doesn’t qualify as famous. The other nominees, on the other hand, are all vaguely feasible. There’s Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Favourite, who just about passes the bro test on account of his age (he’s just one year older than Cooper). Plus, “What world are we living in where you have seven nominations and she’s only got three?” could have been a clumsy attempt to butter up Emma Stone, his actress.That leaves Spike Lee and Adam McKay. Lee is no stranger to saying stupid things but I just can’t see him bending over backwards to single out Emma Stone for praise. And this leaves Adam McKay. Is Adam McKay a famous director? Yes. Would Bradley Cooper call Adam McKay “bro”? Yes. Does Adam McKay give off the impression he’d be rude to a stranger to feel better about himself? Yes. So was it Adam McKay? I’m still not sure. Like Cooper, he has forged a prestigious reputation after years of producing lightweight fare, so perhaps he would be able to empathise with Cooper’s insecurities.Could it be anyone else? Of course. Green Book eventually won best picture that year, and God knows Peter Farrelly seems like an ideal candidate. He passes the bro test with flying colours, and he’s sort of famous, and his career is so spotty that Bradley Cooper might judge that he wouldn’t be jeopardising anything by slagging him off on a podcast.So, was Peter Farrelly the director who turned Bradley Cooper from a lovable everyman into a rage-fuelled, revenge-fixated crank? We may never truly know. But, hey, a bit of wildly unfounded speculation never hurt anyone, right? | Movies |
Grab your flip flops and sunglasses and dive into summer with the Ultimate Songs of Summer Bracket Challenge! We made an entire bracket challenge dedicated to the bops we have been listening to every summer, but which will come out on top? We pulled together some of our modern favorites as well as plenty of the classics. You can download the bracket below to print and fill in. You can then head to our Twitter and Instagram Stories starting Tuesday, June 21 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT to vote in our interactive bracket challenge. The next round of voting will be updated every day until the winning song is announced on June 27. While there’s no “winner” per se, this is a fun way to share the summer songs that bring back those sun-drenched memories. Be sure to use #AccessSummer if you post your completed bracket on your social media accounts. Download your bracket here. | Music |
Iconic acting, singing, and dancing triple threat Jennifer Lopez surprised fans last week at Dodger Stadium when she introduced her biological daughter with gender-neutral pronouns at a charity event. The 52-year-old introduced Emme Muniz, 14, using the pronouns "they" and "them" prior to their duet at the LA Dodgers' Blue Diamond Gala. "The last time we performed together was in a big stadium like this," Lopez said prior to the duet, according to a viral video posted to TikTok. "And I ask them to sing with me all the time, but they won't." PUBLIC'S BELIEF IN GOD DROPS TO HISTORIC LOW: POLL "So, this is a very special occasion. They are very, very busy. Booked. And pricey," Lopez said. "They cost me when they come out. But they're worth every single penny because they're my favorite duet partner of all time." Muniz joined Lopez onstage and used a rainbow microphone to sing "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri, according to a report. Muniz wore a pink button-down shirt, shorts, and a black baseball cap. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The pair performed at the Super Bowl LIV Pepsi halftime show in 2020, the report noted. | Celebrity |
Veteran American actor Martin Sheen has revealed that changing his name is something he "regrets" and that he "paid for it later".The star of The West Wing, the critically acclaimed White House drama in which he played President Jed Bartlet, said he never changed it legally and just adopted it as a stage name.
His real name is Ramon Estevez."It's still Ramon Estevez on my birth certificate," he said in an interview with Closer Weekly."I never changed my name officially. It's on my marriage licence, my passport, driver's licence." Sheen, who was also in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war film Apocalypse Now, said he lacked "insight" before making the change.
"Sometimes you get persuaded when you don't have enough insight or even enough courage to stand up for what you believe in, and you pay for it later," he told the magazine."But, of course, I'm only speaking for myself."His son Emilio Estevez, who is also an actor and starred in The Breakfast Club, St Elmo's Fire and The Outsiders, did not follow his father's lead. Image: Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Sheen said: "The only influence I had on Emilio was to keep his name."When he started out, his agent was advising him to change his name to Sheen and he wouldn't do it. And I thank God he didn't."Sheen is also the father of Two And A Half Men star Charlie Sheen, 56, whose real name is Carlos Estevez. Image: Charlie Sheen Looking back at his time on The West Wing, Sheen said he gets letters from "people who are just discovering it".He added: "A lot of young people were inspired to go into public life because of it."Sheen's father did not want him to go into show business."You couldn't blame him," he said. "Both my parents were immigrants. My father was from Spain, and my mother was from Ireland. My real name is Ramon Estevez."My father was very practical. He was a factory worker for most of his adult life, and he wanted me to go to college and improve my chances of making a better living than he did. We had some very, very painful confrontations about it." | Celebrity |
Steven KleinAs we celebrate the first official day of summer, we’ve officially left entered Cancer season, which means the energy that came with the sun’s move into Gemini is about to switch over from going out to getting deep. In other words: The days between June 21 and July 23 are going to get emotional, making it only more fitting that the season begins with Lana Del Rey‘s birthday, and ends with the melodrama of the season 2 finale of Big Little Lies. Still, that’s not to say that everyone’s in for—to use Del Rey’s words—summertime sadness. Newlyweds Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra have never shied from getting sentimental—nor from having a good time, as they no doubt will on the latter’s birthday. From Selena Gomez to Meryl Streep, see which other celebrity Cancers are set to become the first stars of summer by revisiting their best portraits in W.1Steven KleinSelena Gomez, born July 22nd, photographed by Steven Klein for W Magazine, March 2016.2Jacob SuttonLana Del Rey, born June 21st, photographed by Jacob Sutton for W Magazine, January 2012.3Gisele Bundchen, born July 20th, photographed by Michael Thompson for W Magazine, June 2005.4Meryl Streep, born June 22nd, photographed by Michael Thompson for W Magazine, May 2006.5Will Ferrell, born July 16th, photographed by Juergen Teller for W Magazine, February 2014.6Mindy Kaling, born June 24th, photographed by Pari Dukovic for W Magazine, August 2015.7Tobey Maguire, born June 27th, photographed by Tierney Gearon for W magazine, February 2007.8Lindsay Lohan, born July 2nd, photographed by Brigitte Lacombe for W Magazine, January 2018.9Margot Robbie, born July 2nd, photographed by Tim Walker for W Magazine, February 2019.10Juergen TellerTom Cruise, born July 3rd, photographed by Juergen Teller for W Magazine, February 2013.11Benedict Cumberbatch, born July 19th, photographed by Tim Walker for W Magazine, February 2015.12Camila Mendes, born June 29th, photographed by Heather Hazzan for W Magazine, June 2018.13Joel Edgerton, born June 23rd, photographed by Craig McDean for W Magazine, February 2017.14Diane Kruger, born July 15th, photographed by Santiago and Mauricio for W Magazine, October 2012.15Liv Tyler, born July 1st, photographed by Vanina Sorrenti for W Magazine, August 2016.16Topher Grace , born July 12th, photographed by Sian Kennedy for W Magazine, January 2005.17Olivia Munn, born July 3rd, photographed by David Slijper for W Magazine, September 2014.18Tom Hanks, born July 9th, photographed by Juergen Teller for W Magazine, Best Performances 2018.19Eva Green, born July 6th, photographed by Mert and Marcus for W Magazine, August 2016.20Priyanka Chopra, born July 18th, photographed by Mario Sorrenti for W Magazine, October 2016.21Willem Dafoe, born July 22nd, photographed by Tim Walker for W Magazine, February 2019. | Celebrity |
Kalush Orchestra, the Ukrainian group who triumphed at the 2022 Eurovision song contest, are to perform at Glastonbury festival for their first ever UK concert.Their winning song Stefania blended hip-hop with the intricate flutes and heartfelt vocals of their national folk music, and saw a huge response from the public, who swept them to victory in the Eurovision phone voting – a clear demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine during the war with Russia.The sextet will appear at the Truth stage on Friday night (technically early Saturday morning, at 1.10am), in the festival’s fantastical, highly politicised Shangri-La area.Frontman Oleh Psiuk said: “This is the perfect place for our first ever British performance and we hope it will be the start of many in the UK. We are very grateful for all the support we receive from the people of Britain, both for us and our country, and we are preparing a very special Ukrainian surprise for the fans at Glastonbury. What is it? You’ll soon see.”Chris “Tofu” Macmeikan, director of Shangri-La, said it was a privilege to welcome the group, adding: “We’re honoured to have the chance to show our solidarity with Ukraine. On the Truth stage we have always championed Roma and Eastern European music, remixed for the 21st century, so they are the perfect fit.”Glastonbury welcomes another Ukrainian Eurovision act, 2021 entrants Go_A who came in fifth place (and were voted second in the public vote). The two groups share a band member, Ihor Didenchuk, and, like Kalush Orchestra, Go_A blend traditional Ukrainian songwriting with contemporary influences, resulting in an astonishing high-tempo fusion of folk and techno on their Eurovision entry song Shum. They perform on the John Peel stage at 11.30am on Saturday.Appearing on the Pyramid stage at 12.45, just before Herbie Hancock, is the Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha. Known for their striking stage outfits, and featuring three singers who studied as ethnomusicologists, the quartet use a globe-spanning variety of instruments to make stirring folk songs.At noon on Friday, a talk event on the Left Field stage, co-curated by Billy Bragg, will express solidarity with the people of Ukraine, with panellists including Ukrainian activists alongside the Guardian journalists Emma Graham-Harrison and John Harris, plus others.Kalush Orchestra expressed their disappointment this week at the proposal by Eurovision organisers that the 2023 contest – which normally would have been hosted in the winning country of Ukraine – will take place in the UK, due to security reasons.“Our team is very disappointed with the EBU’s decision and has high hopes that it is possible to change it,” Psiuk said. “We really want to hold this Eurovision song contest in Ukraine and our armed forces will do everything possible to make it safe for everyone. Just give us a little time and we will prove to you that everything will be as it should be.” | Music |
John Textor expands his soccer empire with the purchase of a stake in Lyon. (Photo by Rob Newell - ... [+] CameraSport via Getty Images) CameraSport via Getty Images Another top-flight soccer team is about to change hands. U.S. investor John Textor, the former CEO of OTT platform FuboTV, is paying $846 million to buy Olympique Lyonnais from Jean-Michel Aulas, a source with knowledge of the deal tells Forbes. As part of the agreement Textor will also put in another $91 million of capital earmarked for the acquisition of players. Textor’s purchase of the French Ligue 1 team will give him about two-thirds of the team’s shares. The $856 million price is the enterprise value for the entire team and values OL at 6.8 times 2020-21 revenue. Olympique Lyonnais has been bleeding money. The team lost $114 million during 2020-21 and another $28.7 million during the fist half of the current fiscal year. Upshot: a bottom-heavy balance sheet with shareholders’ equity of $100 million and net debt of $308 million. The Lyon price is considerably lower than the recent prices paid for two other top-flight European teams, Chelsea and AC Milan, which went for for $3.1 billon and $1.28 billion, respectively. A big reason for the lower price is that Ligue 1 gets much less TV money than the Premier League and Serie A, where Chelsea and Milan play. During 2020-21, Chelsea took in $282 million in TV money, AC Milan $147 million and OL $73 million. Textor has built himself quite a geographically diverse soccer empire. He also owns about 40% of Crystal Palace of the Premier League, a majority stake in Brazilian giant Botafogo and part of Belgian top-tier side RWD Molenbeek. | Soccer |
The Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a sad note to U.S. history, but talk show host Amber Ruffin has managed to turn the trials of the seditionists into beautiful music.On Friday’s “The Amber Ruffin Show” on Peacock, Ruffin and sidekick Tarik Davis performed a sexy soul jam dedicated to punishments being meted out to the people who tried to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.They titled it “White Supremacists Facing Consequences Fills Me With Joy.” (“Hahahahahaha! I ONLY do long titles!” Ruffin told HuffPost.)Ruffin begins her song by seductively singing: “Is it the way you looked/ When the judge said you were guilty?/ Is it the way you sweat/ When you realize they have your texts?”Davis then joins in: “Is it the way you smiled/ When you took a selfie at the Capitol building?/ Is it the way you frowned/ When that picture got you thrown in jail?”After a chorus that repeats “Your sadness fills me with joy” to hilarious effect, Ruffin and Davis up the ante by bringing in ’80s soul legend (and Ruffin’s favorite artist) El DeBarge to boost the seditionist soul ballad into high gear:“Is it the way you thought/ You could get away with literal sedition?/Is it the way your friends/And family aren’t on your side?”You can see the video below. But a warning: This is the first anti-insurrectionist song that may make you want to slow dance with your special someone. | Music |
WASHINGTON -- Skateboarding legend Darren Harper and his daughters, Tink and Demi, have become viral sensations thanks to their impressive online videos documenting their skateboarding journeys.Darren, who refers to himself as the "Obama of Skateboarding," has been a long-time fixture of the Washington D.C. skating scene and is widely recognized as one of the first prominent Black skaters. "I started skating when I was about eight or nine years old," Harper says. "I picked up a board when I was living in a low-income neighborhood in Southeast D.C." Harper credits skateboarding with helping him escape the drugs and violence that surrounded him and says the sport encouraged him to forge a better future for himself as a teen.In October 2021 one of Harper's videos caught the attention of skateboarding icon Tony Hawk, who reposted the clip on his Instagram and applauded Harper as "next level." A few months later, Harper, Tink, and Demi were shocked to receive an invitation to meet Hawk for dinner!For Harper, it was a dream come true. As a teen, he says his peers idolized athletes like Michael Jordan or Deion Sanders, but his own hero was always Tony Hawk. "He is the reason pretty much why I kept continuing to push and who saved me," he added.Harper plans to continue sharing the videos of his daughters skateboarding online and hopes Tink and Demi follow in his footsteps of professional skating. "The girls love it and will continue to strive for greatness," he says. "I would love to see them in the Olympics hopefully, if not, I still want to see them take over and be a household name in skateboarding." | Other Sports |
Mimi Xu misses out on becoming the youngest Brit to play at Wimbledon in a century after the 14-year-old star suffers straight sets defeat in the first qualifying round of the tournamentMimi Xu suffered 6-4, 6-3 defeat by USA's Hanna Chang in first qualifying roundBut the 14-year-old star from Swansea put up a brave fight with battling displayXu needed to win three qualifying matches to earn place in the Wimbledon draw Published: 11:59 EDT, 21 June 2022 | Updated: 12:30 EDT, 21 June 2022 Rising star Mimi Xu has fallen short of becoming the youngest British player to feature at Wimbledon in a century after suffering defeat in the first qualifying round for the prestigious Grand Slam.Xu lost to Hanna Chang from the United States, falling in straight sets by a 6-4, 6-3 scoreline in 63 minutes.While the result will be of huge disappointment to Xu, she put in a brave and excellent display to underline her huge potential against Chang who with a world ranking of 269 was always favourite to see off the teenager from Swansea who sits far lower in the rankings at 1147. Despite a promising display Mimi Xu suffered defeat in the first qualifying round at Wimbledon Xu, 14, is regarded as a promising talent in British tennis and could be a star in years to comeTo reach SW19, Xu would have had to win three qualifying matches and that would have made her the youngest Brit to appear at Wimbledon in the post 1968-Open era, and possibly (based on questionable records) in 100 years. She would have usurped the likes of British compatriot Annabel Croft who was 15 when she made the main draw in 1981, while American Coco Gauff was just 15 years and 122 days old when she came through three qualifiers at Roehampton to qualify in 2019.Xu is expected to rise quickly up the rankings in the next few years. She is already tall for her 14 years and powerful enough to see her compete with players up to four years older than her in junior tournaments across the United Kingdom.Her own expectations are high, having been disappointed last week at the lkley Trophy in West Yorkshire where she was beaten by Yanina Wickmayer, despite being more than twice her age and a former US Open semi-finalist. Xu started playing tennis at the age of just three and is now tipped for big things in the sport Having achieved plenty of success in junior competitions, Xu will now step up to senior eventsHer place in Wimbledon qualifying was secured when she claimed the Under 18 British title well ahead of her years back in April.Naturally, Xu was inspired by Raducanu's astonishing success in New York last September and recently hit with the British No 1 for an hour-and-a-half at the National Tennis Academy in Loughborough.'It's been really eye-opening,' Xu said last week. 'Seeing that if she can win like that, we can do that one day, too.'It was really fun being in the moment and she was really nice, really encouraging. That helped me.' Advertisement | Tennis |
South Korea successfully entered the final frontier, launching a satellite into orbit via a homegrown space rocket on its own for the first time Tuesday. The launch renders South Korea one of at least seven countries capable of sending satellites into orbit through domestically developed rocket systems, showcasing its advanced propulsion technology as its belligerent neighbor to the north fires off military-grade rocket tests, ABC News reported. SPACEX FIRES EMPLOYEES WHO CRITICIZED ELON MUSK CONDUCT: REPORT “The science and technology of the Republic of Korea have made a great advance,” Science Minister Lee Jong-Ho said. “The government will continue its audacious march toward becoming a space power together with the people.” Last Thursday was initially slated to be the launch date, but weather concerns and a technical glitch forced a delay. The Nuri was loaded with a 358-pound performance-verification satellite, four cube research satellites, and a dummy satellite. The liftoff went according to plan, and the rocket successfully reached an altitude of 435 miles above the Earth's surface. South Korea joined the United States, Russia, Japan, India, France, and China in its successful use of self-developed propulsion technology for blasting satellites into space, according to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The launch on Tuesday came from the Nuri Development Project, also referred to as the Korean Launch Vehicle project, which began in 2010. The Tuesday launch of the Nuri rocket in Goheung, South Korea, indicates the country has the technology to build a space-based surveillance system amid its animosities with North Korea. (Korea Aerospace Research Institute via AP) In October, the country launched a Nuri rocket for the first time, but the engine burned out about a minute earlier than expected, preventing its payload from entering orbit, the Associated Press reported. The launch Tuesday was its second attempt. "The road from South Korea to space has opened now," President Yoon Suk Yeol said after the launch. "It's the fruit of the difficult challenges of the past 30 years. Now, our Korean people and our young people's dream and hope will reach toward space." The Nuri rocket, the first domestically produced space rocket, lifts off from a launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, on Tuesday. (Korea Aerospace Research Institute via AP) CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER South Korea previously blasted its first rocket, the Naro-1, into orbit in 2013 in collaboration with Russia. South Korea is also collaborating with NASA on developing a lunar orbiter, which is slated to launch next year. South Korea has not launched its own spy satellites into orbit and has relied heavily on the U.S. for satellite surveillance, particularly of neighboring North Korea. Now that it has demonstrated its domestic capability to launch satellites into orbit, it plans to send spy satellites into space in the future. | Space Exploration |
Your favorite Star Wars heroes and villains are headed on vacation, since even Jabba the Hutt deserves a little R&R. In a new trailer for Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation, a new special coming to Disney Plus on August 5, the slug-like gangster is at the center of the dance floor, making the most of his break from the day-to-day slog of villainy.
It takes place shortly after the events of the most recent Star Wars blockbuster The Rise of Skywalker, according to Disney Plus. Finn puts together a vacation for his pals Rey, Poe, Rose, Chewbacca, BB-8, R2-D2 and C-3PO aboard starcruiser the Halcyon, which is also a real-life Disney hotel. Finn encounters Force ghosts Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Leia Organa, who tell him stories about vacations gone wrong. It seems like that's when we'll get to see villains like Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and Jabba let loose. The trailer includes a new "Weird Al" Yankovic song, Scarif Beach Party (you might remember his 1999 tribute tune The Saga Begins). The musician also voices a new character, Vic Vankoh. Scarif is a tropical planet that's home to a top-secret Imperial research facility and appears in 2016 spinoff movie Rogue One.Also among the movie's voice actors are Kelly Marie Tran, Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams, who are reprising their Star Wars movie roles. Here are all the Lego-fied characters we can expect to see in this vacation special: Boba Fett; the Tour Droid; Sidero; C-3PO; Palpatine; Sy Snootles; Poe Dameron; Anakin Skywalker; Han Solo; Finn; Jabba; Vader; Obi-Wan Kenobi; Rose; Rey Skywalker; Lando (Holovid); Ben Solo; and Leia Organa. Colvett Valeria and Wick Cooper from Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures are also in the film. The movie follows Lucasfilm and Lego specials Star Wars Holiday Special and Star Wars Terrifying Tales -- the prior films are both about 45 minutes long. Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation was announced at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in May. 2022's Best TV Shows You Can't Miss on Netflix, HBO, Disney Plus and More See all photos | Movies |
The Spice Girls have led tributes after X Factor star Tom Mann revealed his fiancée Danielle Hampson, 34, died on Saturday – the morning of their wedding day.Tom, who found fame in the band Stereo Kicks, made the devastating announcement on Monday evening, leading to an outpouring of love from his colleagues in the music industry, many of whom worked with Danielle during her successful career as dancer. The Spice Girls shared a photo of Dani on stage during their 2019 Spice World tour as they paid tribute and sent 'love and strength' to Tom, while chart stars Lewis Capaldi and Ellie Goulding also sent their condolences.Danielle worked with a number of big name artists during her successful career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness. Tom had just returned from a holiday with Danielle, 34, who also worked as a PR Executive, in Sardinia last month. Danielle did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown. Sad news: The Spice Girls have led tributes after X Factor star Tom Mann revealed his fiancée Danielle Hampson, 34, died on Saturday – the morning of their wedding day (Danielle is pictured performing on the 2019 Spice World tour)Alongside a photo of Dani posing on stage in a Union Jack ensemble, the Spice Girls wrote in their Twitter tribute:'We were very saddened to hear of the passing of Dani Hampson who was part of the Spiceworld 2019 family. Sending love and strength to Tom, Bowie and Dani’s family and friends ❤️.'Emma Bunton also commented on Tom's post, telling him she was 'heartbroken for you. A beautiful soul that will live on. Thinking of you all.'Dani danced on the Spice World 2019 tour, calling her time performing alongside the Spice Girls 'a childhood dream I never believed would come true.' Shock: Howard Donald, who worked with Danielle, and Lewis Capaldi are among the other big names to send their condolencesLewis Capaldi was among others to comment on Tom's Instagram post, writing: 'Love you brother', while Ellie Goulding wrote: 'I’m thinking of you non stop… You are so strong. Here for you always. Love you xxxx'. Take That star Howard revealed he had worked with Dani on the band's 2017 Wonderland tour, as he wrote on Twitter: 'I'm gutted beyond words that one of our dancers on wonderland has passed away. What a beautiful and super talented dancer she was.'I'm happy to say I danced with her and the uk dance world will be shocked and saddened just like I am.'Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle wrote: 'Sending so much love, light & healing to you, Bowie & everyone who loved Dani!!' Condolences: The star's famous friends reached out to share their support including Lewis Capaldi, Ellie Goulding and Nadine Coyle Mimi Webb penned: 'Tom I'm so so sorry sending all my love to you & thinking of you love you brother x we are with you', while Strictly star HRVY wrote: 'so so so sorry Tom, we all love you thinking of you man.'Tom's old bandmate Barclay Beales said: 'Sending all my love brother so sorry.'Dancer Sarah Lou Richards commented: 'I’m so so sorry Tom. She was so special. Sending all my love and strength to you and little Bowie.' Dancer: Take That star Howard revealed he had worked with Dani on the band's 2017 Wonderland tour, writing: 'I'm gutted beyond words' (pictured with Danielle during a Take That Strictly Come Dancing performance in 2017)Talented: Danielle worked with a number of big name artists during her career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness Successful career: She also danced on the Spice World 2019 tour (pictured in rehearsals with Geri Halliwell and fellow dancers)Arena performances: Danielle called her time performing alongside the Spice Girls 'a childhood dream I never believed would come true' Heartbreaking: The X Factor star (pictured on the show in 2013) revealed the love of his life and mother of his eighth month old son passed away in the early hours of Saturday - the day of their wedding Who was Dani Hampson? Dani Hampson, from Bolton, was born in 1988 to parents Martin and Janette and had a younger brother called Andrew.The 34-year-old was a professional dancer and performed on tour with the likes of Take That and Little Mix.'As well as performing on BBC One's Strictly and ITV series The Voice, Dani also danced alongside the likes of Robbie Williams and Harry Styles.Dani features in the One Direction singer's video for Treat People With Kindness that also stars Fleabag actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.Her appearance in the 2021 video marked the end of Dani's career as a dancer, as she announced her retirement from the profession in the same post.In June 2021, Dani and her singer-songwriter fiancé Tom announced they were expecting their first baby together.The engaged couple welcomed son Bowie Andrew Mann in October and said the newborn's arrival had 'changed their lives forever.' Danielle worked with a number of big name artists during her successful career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness. Singer-songwriter Tom shared a photograph of Dani and their eight month old son Bowie as he revealed that he was feeling 'completely broken' but vowed to stay strong for the sake of their young son. Tom had just returned from a holiday with Danielle, 34, who also worked as a PR Executive, in Sardinia last month. Danielle did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown.Tom wrote in his Instagram post: 'I can't believe I am writing these words but my darling Dani - my best friend, my everything and more, the love of my life - passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning, 18th June.'On what was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives ended in irreversible heartbreak.'I feel like I have cried an ocean. We never made it to the alter; or got to say our vows, or dance our first dance, but I know you know that you were my entire world and the best thing that has ever happened to me, Danielle.'I will wear this ring that I was always supposed to wear as a sign of my unconditional love to you.' Tom went on to vow that he would stay strong for his son, penning: 'I am completely broken trying to process this and I honestly don't know where to go from here, but I do know I need to use any strength I can muster for our little boy.'I will not be a mark on the parent that you had already become but I promise I will do my everything to raise Bowie just the way we always wanted. I promise you he will know how amazing his mummy was. I promise to make you so so proud.'The most beautiful person inside and out. The most incredible soul. We have lost such a special person and I am sure we are about to see an abundant outpouring of love that reflects that. 'I will try to find peace in your messages and comments, but right now I am grieving and I will be for a very, very long time.'Tom added: 'My darling Dani, the brightest light in any room, my world is nothing but darkness without you. I will miss you forever.' Tragic: Tom, who found fame in the band Stereo Kicks, made the devastating announcement on Monday evening, leading to an outpouring of love from his colleagues in the music industry Broken: The singer-songwriter shared a photograph of Dani and their son Bowie as he revealed that he was feeling 'completely broken' but vowed to stay strong for the sake of their young son Tom wrote in his Instagram post: 'I can't believe I am writing these words but my darling Dani - my best friend, my everything and more, the love of my life - passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning, 18th June' He continued: 'I will wear this ring that I was always supposed to wear as a sign of my unconditional love to you'The couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom. They announced their engagement in December 2019, with Tom sharing a gushing post about his 'future wife' after he popped the question in a jazz cafe in London. Her last social media post came three weeks prior to her death when she shared pictures from the couple's holiday in Sardinia with friends. Tom went on to vow that he would stay strong for his son, penning: 'I am completely broken trying to process this and I honestly don't know where to go from here, but I do know I need to use any strength I can muster for our little boy' Love: They announced their engagement in December 2019, with Tom sharing a gushing post about his 'future wife' after he popped the question in a jazz cafe in London Time with friends: Danielle had celebrated her future wedding with a mini hen do with her girls prior to the big dayTom auditioned for X Factor as a solo artist but was put in Stereo Kicks, which made it to the final of the ITV singing show in 2014.The group consisted of Jake Sims, Chris Leonard, Charlie Jones, Casey Johnson, Barclay Beales, Reece Bibby, and Tom.Tom wrote the band's first single Love Me So and at the time said: 'For me to have written our first single it's a massive honour that it's been chosen and everyone in the band loves it Tom added: 'My darling Dani, the brightest light in any room, my world is nothing but darkness without you. I will miss you forever.' Loved-up: The couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom He penned: 'I will not be a mark on the parent that you had already become but I promise I will do my everything to raise Bowie just the way we always wanted. I promise you he will know how amazing his mummy was. I promise to make you so so proud''I wrote the single within a day. I can't come back to a song, I have to finish it.'He went on to write songs for acts including JLS, Lewis Capaldi, Becky Hill and Mimi Webb. The group split up in 2015 just 10 months after they were formed on The X Factor.A statement to fans on the eight-piece boy band's Facebook page revealed they decided to go their separate ways after struggling to secure a record deal. Last post: Danielle's last social media post came three weeks prior to her death. She shared pictures from the couple's holiday in Sardinia Family snaps: Danielle had shared a gallery of images with her fiancé and their baby boy Fun with friends: Danielle and Tom had been joined by a group of friends on their trip Tom said of Danielle: 'The most beautiful person inside and out. The most incredible soul. We have lost such a special person and I am sure we are about to see an abundant outpouring of love that reflects that' The group wrote: 'We all feel the time has come for us to now continue our journeys individually.'We have learnt first-hand just how tough the industry is as an unsigned act. Unfortunately, due to these circumstances, we are no longer able to carry on as a band.'Please understand that there is nothing more that you could have done and that this is a situation completely beyond both your control and ours. We have considered endless ways of how we might try to make this work, but it is logistically impossible for us to continue as Stereo Kicks.'From the bottom of our hearts, we will be forever grateful for all of your hard work, support and love. We can't thank you enough.'The group went on to add that there had been no falling out between the members before they decision to call it a day: 'We still remain the BEST of friends and will continue to support each other in everything we do. Band: Tom auditioned for the X Factor as a solo artist but was put in Stereo Kicks, which made it to the final of X Factor in 2014'Although this is really sad for us, we felt that we wanted to end on a high. You guys have been with us every step of the way and have been the first to hear our news, and we wanted to keep it that way!' The group all performed a solo artists during the auditions stage of The X Factor in 2014, before being merged into a group by the judges.Tom, who was 19-years-old when he auditioned, was a football coach from Southampton who sang the Cyndi Lauper classic, 'Girls Just want to Have Fun' during the Boot Camp stage on the popular ITV show.Former panellist Louis Walsh then put the boys through to the live shows, where they stayed until they were kicked out after a sing-off with Lauren Platt in week eight.Louis fumed at Simon Cowell at the time, insisting he would regret his decision not to save them when they became a huge hit. First post: The couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom Tragedy: The couple had shared pictures of the save the date for the wedding which tragically never took place He said to the Metro: 'It was totally the wrong decision by Simon. The potential for these boys is incredible and time will tell who will do well between these boys and the girl.'I am never going to let him forget it. And when they sell all those records I will say, 'Do you remember when you voted them off?'The group had been tipped to be the next One Direction, but suffered a series of scandals in the early days of their formation.Barclay was the victim of revenge porn at the end of last year after an explicite naked photo was leaked online.Meanwhile, Jake was caught up in two drugs scandals in a month after pictures showing him lying in a daze after allegedly snorting Class A drug ketamine emerged just weeks after he was accused of making several references about smoking drugs online. Celebrity spot: Danielle (pictured with Gary Barlow) did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown | Music |
CROMWELL, Conn. — Brooks Koepka, one of the first players to denounce a rival league for only 48 players, is the latest PGA Tour player to sign on with Saudi-funded LIV Golf series, The Associated Press has learned.A person briefed on Koepka’s decision told the AP said he still would be able to compete on the PGA Tour until he hits a shot on the LIV Golf circuit. The person spoke on condition of anonymity without authorization to speak on behalf of the tour.The Daily Telegraph in the UK first reported Koepka’s decision.Koepka remained in the field for the Travelers Championship, though he was not at a player meeting Tuesday morning at the TPC River Highlands. The next LIV Golf event starts June 30 outside Portland, Oregon.Koepka was second player, behind Rory McIlroy, who speak out against a rival league in March 2020 when he told the AP, “I have a hard time believing golf should be about just 48 players.”“Money isn’t going to change my life,” Koepka said at the time.The proposed rival league was different from LIV Golf, presented as the “Premier Golf League” though still relying on Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Greg Norman and LIV Golf took the idea of 48-man fields, no cuts with a team component.LIV Golf has not announced Koepka’s signing amid speculation that a few others were soon to join. ESPN Deportes reported over the weekend that Abraham Ancer of Mexico also was signing. Ancer is No. 20 in the world with one PGA Tour victory.Koepka gives LIV Golf a big name with his four major titles — back-to-back in the U.S. Open (2017-18) and PGA Championship (2018-19), though his game has been in decline since then because of a series of injuries.His last victory was the Phoenix Open in February 2021 and he has fallen to No. 19 in the world. In the majors this year, he missed the cut at the Masters and has finished out of the top 50 in the PGA Championship and U.S. Open. | Golf |
Pusha T 'Almost Dry' Is Album of the Year ... And That's Tom Brady Approved!!! 6/21/2022 9:41 AM PT Noted hip hop historian Tom Brady is naming his champion in a crowded sea of 2022 album releases, and for him it's ... Pusha T’s 'It’s Almost Dry!' During a literal promo run for his Brady Brand “Run” apparel line, TB12 used Pusha and Kanye’s 'IAD' collaboration “Dreaming of the Past” as he jokingly bragged about being the fastest QB in the NFL. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Pusha got wind of the drop ... retweeted and got TB12 to co-sign that ‘IAD’ was indeed Album Of The Year. In their book at least, anyway. Released in April on Good Music and Def Jam, the album split production duties between Ye and Pharrell and features from JAY-Z, Lil Uzi Vert and Kid Cudi … who said it was his last time pairing with Ye … but that’s another story. Push recently performed cuts at Pharrell’s Something In The Water Festival and reunited with brother Malice of the Clipse and Justin Timberlake. TB12’s the football GOAT and if his music tastes are influencing his playing … then it’s probably safe to trust his ears. Unless you're lining up against him on Sundays. Waiting for your permission to load Spotify album. Either way, high praise for Pusha! | Music |
A Tesla Model 3 vehicle drives on autopilot along the 405 highway in Westminster, California, U.S., March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - U.S. auto safety regulators in April 2021 asked Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) about incidents involving its cars striking parked emergency vehicles while using Autopilot months before it opened a formal probe, according to a letter recently made public.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sent Tesla an eight-page letter seeking a meeting and answers "to properly assess these recent incidents and to better understand how Tesla’s planned updates would increase driver attentiveness and reduce the risk of collisions with stationary emergency vehicles."NHTSA opened a formal preliminary evaluation in August of 765,000 vehicles after about a dozen crashes in which Tesla cars struck stopped emergency vehicles when using its driver assistance system Autopilot. Earlier this month, NHTSA upgraded its probe into a total of 830,000 Tesla vehicles with Autopilot to an engineering analysis, a required step before it could seek a recall. NHTSA said this month it had identified six additional crashes involving emergency vehicles.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comNHTSA has not released Tesla's response, which was due by May 2021. Tesla has repeatedly sought confidential treatment for submissions to NHTSA.Tesla, which has disbanded its press office, did not respond to a request for comment. NHTSA did not immediately answer whether Tesla met with the agency after its April request.The April 2021 letter sought details on Autopilot sales, usage and crash statistics, all planned updates and a "detailed chronology of changes made to driver state monitoring." It included seven crashes with emergency vehicles that were among those listed by NHTSA in August and also sought answers about five other "inattentive driver" crashes.NHTSA asked questions about driver actions in those crashes and "the effect, if any, that Tesla's recently proposed countermeasures would have had on the outcome of the incident."The auto safety agency said in June evidence suggested drivers in most crashes under review had complied with Tesla’s alert strategy that seeks to compel driver attention, raising questions about its effectiveness.NHTSA has reports of 16 crashes, including seven injury incidents and one death, involving Tesla vehicles in Autopilot that had struck stationary first-responder and road maintenance vehicles.Tesla says Autopilot allows vehicles to brake and steer automatically within their lanes but does not make them capable of driving themselves.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by David Shepardson in Washington
Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Automotive and Transportation |
Ed Sheeran and his co-songwriters have been awarded more than £900,000 in legal costs after winning their high court copyright trial over the hit Shape of You earlier this year.At a trial in March, the singer and his co-writers Snow Patrol’s John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon faced accusations that their track ripped off a 2015 song by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue.However, Mr Justice Zacaroli concluded Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase in the song.Sheeran, his co-authors and their music companies originally launched legal proceedings in May 2018, asking the high court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O’Donoghue’s copyright.Two months later, Chokri – a grime artist who performs under the name Sami Switch – and O’Donoghue issued their own claim for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement”.The pair had alleged that an “oh I” hook in Shape Of You was “strikingly similar” to an “oh why” refrain in their own track.But in his previous judgment, Zacaroli concluded “Mr Sheeran had not heard Oh Why and in any event that he did not deliberately copy the ‘oh I’ phrase from the ‘oh why’ hook”.He dismissed the counterclaim and granted a declaration to Sheeran and his fellow songwriters that they had not infringed the copyright in Oh Why.After the ruling, lawyers for Chokri and O’Donoghue had said Sheeran and the other claimants should pay their own legal costs, claiming they had failed to provide documents and demonstrated “awkwardness and opacity”.However, in a ruling on Tuesday, Zacaroli said that the lesser-known songwriters should pay the legal costs, ordering an interim payment of £916,200.A further hearing is expected to assess and finalise the sums.“I consider it is appropriate that the claimants’ success is reflected in an order that their costs are paid by the defendants, without reduction save for that which is made as part of the process of detailed assessment,” Zacaroli said.The judge dismissed arguments that the defendants would have changed their approach to the case if some documents and explanations about how Shape of You was written had been provided earlier.Zacaroli said: “None of the disclosure or explanations, once provided to the defendants, caused them to alter their approach at all.“Instead, they not only maintained their attack on Mr Sheeran but broadened it by asserting that he was a ‘magpie’ who habitually misappropriated song ideas from other writers.”Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTDuring the 11-day trial in central London, Sheeran denied he “borrows” ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledgment and insisted he “always tried to be completely fair” in crediting people who contributed to his albums.In a video message after the ruling in April, Sheeran said: “Claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim, and it’s really damaging to the songwriting industry.“Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope with this ruling it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end.” | Music |
ESPN continues to explore thoughtful ways to show up in immersive digital platforms. The latest, which launched Thursday, is Fifty/50 World, an immersive digital destination that amplifies ESPN's content around the powerful month championing the 50th Anniversary of Title IX.Fifty/50 World runs through June 30, featuring content watch/listen parties, guest speakers and virtual games throughout the two-week span."Fifty/50 World is the latest in a long line of innovative firsts for ESPN Edge, as we look to engage our fans in new, exciting and immersive ways," said Kevin Lopes, VP of Business Development & Innovation, ESPN."Over the course of two weeks, fans are going to be able to deep dive into this interactive and shared 3D world together to uncover more stories of Title IX and the women moving the world forward." said Kati Fernandez, Director of Original Content & Integration, ESPN.Featured within Fifty/50 World is Julie Foudy's Laughter Permitted Podcast, Fifty50 x Special Olympics discussion featuring Loretta Claiborne and Novie Craven, The Ultimate Fighter: Julianna Peña vs. Amanda Nunes, and much more.The first interactive virtual event for ESPN features all programming inside Fifty/50 World's virtual ESPN Wide World of Sports. Additionally, the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando will feature Fifty/50 World content on digital screens throughout the sports complex, also guiding guests to activate via their mobile devices.To enter Fifty/50 World, head over to espnfifty50.com.Click here for the full programming schedule.The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ESPN and this ABC station. Copyright © 2022 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved. | Other Sports |
Collin Morikawa has denied he intends to join the LIV Golf Series after reports emerged on Tuesday linking the reigning Open champion and another high-profile player, Brooks Koepka, to the Saudi-backed league. “Last week at my press conference, I said the media loves creating drama. Sure enough, I woke up this morning to everyone thinking I’m next. Not to say I told you so but…I told you so,” Morikawa wrote on Twitter.To state for the record, once again, you all are absolutely wrong. I’ve said it since February at Riviera that I’m here to stay on the @PGATOUR and nothing has changed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some cereal to pour in my milk— Collin Morikawa (@collin_morikawa) June 21, 2022
“To state for the record, once again, you all are absolutely wrong. I’ve said it since February at Riviera that I’m here to stay on the @PGATOUR and nothing has changed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some cereal to pour in my milk.”Several high-profile players, such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia have joined the LIV Series, which has come under criticism due to Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights abuses. However, as yet no player in the world top 15 has decided to join the competition. The PGA Tour has suspended 17 players, including Mickelson and Johnson, after they signed up for the LIV Series. Morikawa would have been the first top 10 player to join the breakaway league.Reports on Tuesday said that Koepka, the world No 19, would announce his decision to join the LIV Series in the coming days. The four-time major champion has yet to comment on the reports but at last week’s US Open he bristled when asked about the LIV Series.“I’m here at the US Open,” he said. “I’m ready to play the US Open, and I think it kind of sucks, too, you are all throwing this black cloud over the US Open. It’s one of my favorite events. I don’t know why you guys keep doing that. The more legs you give [LIV Golf], the more you keep talking about it.”After its opening event in London, the series moves to the US with tournaments in Portland and Bedminster. The Bedminster course is owned by Donald Trump, currently under investigation for his role in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. | Golf |
WNBA star Brittney Griner tried to call her wife nearly a dozen times through the American embassy in Russia on the couple’s fourth anniversary Saturday, but they never connected because the phone line at the embassy was not staffed.Rick Scuteri/AP file photo WASHINGTON — WNBA star Brittney Griner tried to call her wife nearly a dozen times through the American embassy in Russia on the couple’s fourth anniversary Saturday, but they never connected because the phone line at the embassy was not staffed, Cherelle Griner said Monday.The couple has not spoken by phone in the four months since Griner’s arrest in Russia on drug-related charges. That was to have changed Saturday, when a long-awaited call was to have finally taken place. But the day came and went without any contact, leaving an anguished Cherelle Griner to wonder what went wrong and to suspect at least initially that Russian authorities had thwarted the call.On Monday, she said she learned from her wife’s lawyers a more distressing truth: Brittney Griner had actually tried to call 11 times over a period of several hours, dialing a number she’d been given at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, which the couple had been told would then patch the call through to Cherelle Griner in Phoenix. But each time, the call went unanswered because the desk at the embassy where the phone rang was apparently unstaffed on Saturday.“I was distraught. I was hurt. I was done, fed up,” Cherelle Griner told The Associated Press in an interview, recounting how an anniversary she had eagerly anticipated was instead spent in tears. “I’m pretty sure I texted BG’s agent and was like: ‘I don’t want to talk to anybody. It’s going to take me a minute to get my emotions together and just tell everybody I’m unavailable right now. Because it just knocked me out. I wasn’t well, I’m still not well.”The experience has further exacerbated already simmering frustrations about the U.S. government’s response to her wife’s case. U.S. officials have repeatedly said they are working behind the scenes to get the two-time Olympian home from Russia and consider her case a top priority. But Cherelle Griner said she remains “very pissed” by the snafu, especially since the call had been on the schedule for two weeks and yet no one warned her during that time that it might be logistically impossible because of the weekend.The State Department said Monday that it was aware of the issue and was looking into it. Cherelle Griner said a contact in the U.S. government had apologized to her for the error. She said she’s since learned that the one number Brittney Griner had been told to dial typically processes calls from prisoners on Mondays through Fridays but not weekends.“But mind you,” Cherelle Griner said in the interview, “this phone call had been scheduled for almost two weeks — with a weekend date.”She added: “I find it unacceptable and I have zero trust in our government right now. If I can’t trust you to catch a Saturday call outside of business hours, how can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife’s behalf to come home? Because that’s a much bigger ask than to catch a Saturday call.”Cherelle Griner said she was still hoping to talk to or meet with President Joe Biden, but “at this point it’s starting to feel like a no.”Brittney Griner, a seven-time WNBA All-Star who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was detained at a Russian airport on Feb. 17 after authorities there said a search of her bag revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.The State Department in May designated her as wrongfully detained, moving her case under the supervision of its Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, effectively the government’s chief hostage negotiator. Russian state-run news agency Tass reported last week that her detention had been extended until July 3.So far, Cherelle Griner says she’s had to rely exclusively on others’ assessments about her wife’s condition. Lawyers and consular affairs officials have been able to speak with the basketball star, but her wife has not.On the evening before the call, she went to sleep at 5 p.m. so that she’d be awake and alert at midnight to receive the anticipated call from Russia to Phoenix that never came.“This was such a big moment because this would have been the first time where I truly could tell if she’s okay,” Cherelle Griner said. “This would have been the first time for me to actually just hear her in real time and to truly know if she’s okay or to know if she’s seconds away from not being in existence anymore.” | Basketball |
Meet Kari. Now meet the other Kari. One played college lacrosse in the 1980s; the other currently plays at the same school for the same coach. College sports have radically evolved during that time—take the high-tech clothes that emit infrared radiation to maximize performance—but there’s one constant: Title IX of the Higher Education Act ensures that no person is excluded from university programs “on the basis of sex.” In collaboration with ESPN and The Walt Disney Company, we examine how Title IX continues to ripple across American society.For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.Want more?Dive into ESPN’s Fifty/50, a month-long storytelling project that illuminates Title IX, one of the most significant pieces of American civil rights legislation—and maybe the most misunderstood.Title IX met fierce resistance even after it was passed. Learn why it was urgently needed and how its opponents pushed back.“If you’re not upset about this problem, then you’re a part of it.” Disparities in food and training facilities at an NCAA championship tournament led to a public reckoning for college basketball.Also explore:The Iroquois invented lacrosse. Now the Iroquois national lacrosse team—led by one of the sport’s biggest stars—wants to compete in the 2028 Olympics. The first step: gain recognition from international sports organizers.The stories of 20 women from the National Geographic archives show how these explorers mapped the ocean floor, conquered Earth’s highest peaks, and unearthed ancient civilizations—but didn’t always get the credit they deserved. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Top Podcasts In Science More by National Geographic | Other Sports |
The International Space Station sometimes has to shift its path to stay in the right orbit or to avoid debris (like it did last week). Usually, the ISS crew calls on Russian equipment to provide the thrust for the adjustments, but NASA tried to use a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft in a "reboost" test on Monday. It didn't go as planned.Cygnus-17 was supposed to fire its engine for a little over 5 minutes, but the firing aborted after just 5 seconds. In a statement on Monday, NASA said the "the cause for the abort is understood and under review," but didn't elaborate on what happened. The ISS flies in a low Earth orbit, and the planet's atmosphere is constantly dragging on it. Regular reboosts help the station stay in orbit. "The reboost is designed to provide Cygnus with an enhanced capability for station operations as a standard service for NASA," the space agency said. Back in 2018, NASA performed a short test of an ISS reboost maneuver with a different Cygnus spacecraft, but there's a little more importance to the operation this time around. Russian cosmonauts and American and European astronauts are getting along just fine on the ISS, but there are tensions on the ground due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It makes sense for NASA to have a way to adjust the station's orbit that doesn't rely on Russian gear. SpaceX founder Elon Musk suggested in February that SpaceX's Dragon capsules could also handle reboost duties if needed.The Cygnus-17 spacecraft was used to transport cargo to the ISS. The crew emptied it and then repacked it with trash and discarded gear. It will soon depart from the ISS and burn up in Earth's atmosphere, like a space garbage disposal. But first, NASA is hoping to pull off a successful reboost. The do-over could happen as soon as Saturday. | Space Technology |
CROMWELL, Conn. — Brooks Koepka, one of the first players to denounce a rival league for only 48 players, is the latest PGA Tour player to sign on with Saudi-funded LIV Golf series, The Associated Press has learned.A person briefed on Koepka's decision told the AP said he still would be able to compete on the PGA Tour until he hits a shot on the LIV Golf circuit. The person spoke on condition of anonymity without authorization to speak on behalf of the tour.The Daily Telegraph in the UK first reported Koepka's decision.Koepka remained in the field for the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, though he was not at a player meeting Tuesday morning at the TPC River Highlands. The next LIV Golf event starts June 30 outside Portland, Oregon.Koepka was second player, behind Rory McIlroy, who speak out against a rival league in March 2020 when he told the AP, “I have a hard time believing golf should be about just 48 players.”“Money isn't going to change my life,” Koepka said at the time.The proposed rival league was different from LIV Golf, presented as the “Premier Golf League” though still relying on Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Greg Norman and LIV Golf took the idea of 48-man fields, no cuts with a team component.LIV Golf has not announced Koepka's signing amid speculation that a few others were soon to join. ESPN Deportes reported over the weekend that Abraham Ancer of Mexico also was signing. Ancer is No. 20 in the world with one PGA Tour victory.Koepka gives LIV Golf a big name with his four major titles — back-to-back in the U.S. Open (2017-18) and PGA Championship (2018-19), though his game has been in decline since then because of a series of injuries.His last victory was the Phoenix Open in February 2021 and he has fallen to No. 19 in the world. In the majors this year, he missed the cut at the Masters and has finished out of the top 50 in the PGA Championship and U.S. Open. | Golf |
Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya just booked their return tickets to Arrakis. “Dune”Warner Bros. It’s no surprise: All signs were pointing to a “Dune” sequel by the time Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel opened in U.S. theaters (Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff all but confirmed a follow-up movie on October 21, the day before the film’s opening). On October 26, came official confirmation from Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. that “Dune: Part Two” was officially a go.
As Villeneuve himself announced in a statement: “I just received news from Legendary that we are officially moving forward with ‘Dune: Part Two.’ It was a dream of mine to adapt Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ and I have the fans, the cast, and crew, Legendary and Warner Bros. to thank for supporting this dream. This is only the beginning.”
So where does the “Dune” franchise go from here? Below, IndieWire has rounded up all of the major details we know about “Dune: Part Two” right now. The rundown below will be updated as more news breaks related to the “Dune” sequel are released. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
Approximately 4 billion years ago, Mars was an entirely different place compared to the cold and dry wasteland we know today. Evidence shows that it had numerous flowing rivers and lakes. Many of these ancient rivers and lakes left behind marks and etchings that we can still observe today. Naturally, the question arises, where did all that water go? The prevailing hypothesis has been that a lot of it has evaporated with the remainder stored in the form of ice on Mars' north and south pole. However, a mystery arose after it became clear that not enough evaporation has taken place to account for the disappeared water. In addition, satellite observations showed that there isn’t enough ice to account for even the lowest of estimates for the amount of water that was once there. So, where did missing water go? A team of two researchers from Binghamton University thinks they may have found the answer. They published their findings in Icarus, a science journal dedicated to planetary science. The main discovery described in the paper is that iron-rich smectite (a group of clay minerals) can exist at higher temperatures than previously thought. It can hold itself up to 600 degrees Celcius. The team determined in the lab by literally heating up and squeezing materials to find their limits instead of the traditional way of visiting mountains and looking at rock formations. So why is this important? The scientists hypothesize that the missing martian surface water may have disappeared underground, sealed in clay. But there has to be enough of it to contain the vast amount of missing water. As the least thermally stable form of smectite, it has been presumed that iron-rich smectite cannot exist deep beneath the surface of Mars. Now that it has been determined that it can withstand temperatures of up to 600 degrees. Celcius, it turns out that it can actually exist at depths of up to 30 kilometers. All of this means that iron-rich smectite can potentially form a vast reservoir that is large enough to account for the 'missing surface water' on the red planet. How to test this theory without drilling on Mars?The fact that it is extremely difficult and expensive to get equipment to mars means that it is (currently) not impossible to drill deep enough to verify the team's theory. Luckily there exist some features on mars that could help us out, namely impact craters. While there are only about 120 identified impact craters on Earth, Mars is literally littered with them; it has over 40,000 impact craters have a diameter greater than 5 kilometers.Satellites can remotely collect mineralogy-related data by analyzing light reflected from the surface. So it is possible to set up future studies that can help confirm whether clay minerals really are the main water reservoir on Mars.Sources and further reading:The upper-thermal stability of an iron-rich smectite: Implications for smectite formation on Mars - (Icarus)Mysterious discovery: Mars didn't dry up at once; it had alternating dry and wet eras (Universal-Sci)Mars colony: how to make breathable air and fuel from brine – new research (Universal-Sci) | Space Exploration |
Arsenal have completed the signing of Fábio Vieira from Porto, with manager Mikel Arteta describing the Portuguese midfielder as a “special talent.”Vieira came through Porto’s youth system and helped Sergio Conceição’s side win the league and cup double last season. He scored six goals and provided 14 assists and has cost Arsenal €35m (£30m) plus €5m in add-ons. The 22-year has signed a “long-term contract” with the London club.“This is an important step forward in my career,” said Vieira. “Arsenal is a huge and historic club, so I’m delighted to be here at my new home. I feel it’s the right move in my career. I think it will be really good for me and I have no regrets about it. I’m thrilled to be here.”Vieira will wear the No 21 shirt having become Arsenal’s second signing of the summer, following the arrival of 19-year-old Brazilian forward Marquinhos from São Paulo.“I am very excited that we have identified and signed such a special talent,” said Arteta. “Fábio is a very creative player that will bring high quality and versatility to our attacking play. We welcome Fábio and his family to our club and are looking forward to starting work with him ahead of the new season.”Arsenal’s technical director, Edu, added: “We’re so pleased to have completed the signing of Fabio. He is a player with special qualities who is comfortable with the ball in the final third of the pitch. We are all looking forward to working with him and enjoying his future contribution to Arsenal.”Arsenal are now expected to move for Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus, their primary summer target. City reportedly want £50m for the Brazil international. | Soccer |
No good comes of fame, says Polly Hudson, but at least EastEnders actress Jessie is refreshingly honest, even if she did get herself arrested. And there's none of the pretentious twaddle you get from a certain superstar singerEastEnders favourite Jessie WallaceYou might want to sit down for this. Ready? Beyonce loves her family. And also, she once indicated that she might be free to pose for some photos for the July issue of Vogue. Thrilling, right? We’re allowed to know this because it transpires that she was free to pose for those photos, so she’s on the cover of the fashion mag this month. (July’s issue comes out in June, obviously, because that’s how ahead of the curve they are.) In the accompanying 887 word article, Beyonce deigns to utter just 17. “I think we could do something for July” and “My earth, my heart, my soil and my sanity”, which, the writer breathlessly informs us, is the utterly unpretentious way she refers to her nearest and dearest. This is highly relatable of course – it’s literally exactly how my mum is saved in my phone. Beyonce's new solo studio album is her first in six years (
Image:
Kevin Winter/Getty Images) In the remaining 870 words of fawning fan fiction, so much smoke is blown up Beyonce’s backside it’s a wonder her internal organs didn’t get par boiled. Meanwhile, in basically an alternate dimension, EastEnders’ Jessie Wallace was arrested for assaulting a police officer outside a nightclub after being, shall we say, perhaps slightly overserved at the bar. While clearly not condoning violence of any kind, no one can deny that one of these women has been utterly consumed by the nonsense of fame, and the other has stayed 100% real. Becoming famous is yet to make anyone a nicer person. It’s not hard to see why – you’re suddenly surrounded by sycophants catering to your every whim, and never telling you when you’re out of line. There’s also a theory that you stop maturing at the age you get famous, which explains why so many celebrities act like spoilt teenagers, and Robbie Williams’ entire personality. Many chase fame because they think it will validate them, solve all their problems, feel the gaping void in their soul. Spoiler: it never does. Mostly it just makes them even more miserable, in nicer rooms, wearing a better outfit. Say what you like about Jessie (from a safe distance) she has absolutely, resolutely not bought into any of the bulls***. She’s papped coming out of Sainsbury’s in her slippers. Beyonce – who was in Destiny’s Child age nine –has probably only been in a supermarket once, by accident or for an ironic photo shoot. And while that might sound like bliss at first, it must actually be very isolating and strange not to have normal, ordinary experiences that you share with everyone else on the planet. Beyonce’s living in a bubble, albeit an uber plush bubble, with her earth, heart, soil and sanity. There’s something about Jessie that simply refuses to be fake (apart from her tan), even her screen role is more reality show than acting. And while we might not approve of some of her actions, in today’s climate of agonisingly curated, filtered lies, and safe, careful blandness, it’s hard not to find that refreshing. Be More Beyonce? No thanks. Taking yourself that seriously doesn’t look like much fun, for her, or anyone around her. I’ll take Jessie over Beyonce any day. Read More Read More | Celebrity |
Singer Beyonce arrives at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, U.S., August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLONDON, June 21 (Reuters) - American pop star Beyonce Knowles-Carter has surprised fans with an early release of her single ‘Break My Soul’ from upcoming album ‘Renaissance’, setting social media ablaze with song lyrics that some say tap into rising worker anger at conditions.“I'm gonna find new drive / damn, they work me so damn hard / Work by nine, then off past five /And they work my nerves, that's why I cannot sleep at night,” sings the artist, adding "I just quit my job."Some commentators said the words channeled the post-pandemic "Great Resignation" in which businesses are struggling to find enough employees.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"Beyoncé saw that it was the summer of late-millennial burnout, the labor movement, ‘90s revival, and queer pride and was like, 'Yeah, I can make a song about that'," wrote Patu Patel, editor-in-chief of music magazine Pitchfork on social media platform Twitter.Knowles-Carter has not commented on the meaning of the lyrics.The single was co-written by her husband Sean Carter (Jay-Z) and samples singer Robin S's 1990s dance classic ‘Show Me Love’ as well as featuring gay American rapper Big Freedia's song ‘Explode’.The song debuted on Tidal, the streaming service co-owned by Jay-Z, and dropped at midnight EST (5am GMT) on June 21 on other major music streaming services, with an accompanying lyric video published on YouTube.Knowles-Carter, 40, released ‘Be Alive’, her Oscar-nominated contribution to the soundtrack of the movie ‘King Richard’, in November 2021. She also launched the soundtrack album ‘The Lion King: The Gift’, with the songs appearing in both the ‘Black is King’ and ‘Lion King’ movies in July last year.However, Renaissance (Act 1) is the artists’ first solo studio album since Lemonade was released in April 2016. The record will include 16 tracks and is set to launch on July 29.She is the most nominated woman and the most awarded singer in Grammy Award history, winning a total of 28 awards and 79 nominations for her music, including her work in music group Destiny's Child and ‘The Carters,’ an album co-released with her husband.She is also the eighth-most awarded artist at the Billboard Music Awards.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Sharon Kimathi; Editing by Frank Jack DanielOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Music |
Delonte West Says He's Okay After Panhandling Video ... 'I'm In Between Jobs' 6/21/2022 10:41 AM PT The Image Direct Delonte West says there's nothing to worry about after video of him panhandling in the streets went viral last week ... insisting he's doing okay, and is actively looking for a job. Remember, we broke the news in February that the former NBA guard -- who's publicly battled mental health and addiction issues -- was back on the right track, training to make the Big 3. But, last week, a fan shared video on social media showing West, looking disheveled, panhandling in the streets of Virginia ... and it caught many off guard. Roommates let’s keep former NBA player Delonte West in our prayers. Looks like he was spotted on the side of the road in Alexandria, VA recently. 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/wmgVVmff2m— TheShadeRoom (@TheShadeRoom) June 11, 2022 @TheShadeRoom So, when Image Direct caught up with the 38-year-old this week, they asked Delonte if he was doing okay, and why he was on the streets asking for money. "It is what it is," West said. "I got children. I'm in between jobs. People can help me as much as they can, but you know, as a man I gotta do what I gotta do for my babies." @thebig3/Twitter As for the Big 3, West says there were so many talented players there he understands why he didn't make the cut ... but he's thankful for the chance. "I was excited to have the opportunity," West said, "I'll be there next season. I'll be there rooting guys on." Despite a bunch of tough breaks, the 8-year NBA vet seemingly isn't letting some difficult times discourage him ... saying he'll keep working hard and hopes to be a part of an NBA coaching staff soon. "I'm always involved in the game I love. Last year, I was scouting for the Dallas Mavericks and the previous three years, I was an NBA scout for the Boston Celtics." 3/21/22 YouTube/DONOVAN THE ENTERTAINER West added, "I was actually looking forward to being a head coach or assistant coach in the NBA this season but like I said, it's a business that have a lot of people involved and wanna stay involved." "Prayerfully, luckily I'll be up for discussion this upcoming season." We're rooting for you, Delonte! | Basketball |
When Stephen Colbert watched Chicago Cubs first baseman Frank Schwindel pitch in relief during an 18-4 loss to the New York Yankees a few weeks ago, the late-night talk show host was amused by his eephus pitch.“I’m no baseball player,” Colbert said on “The Late Show.” “And neither apparently is Frank Schwindel.”Instead of laughing along and enjoying the national shout-out, the usually easy-going Schwindel took umbrage last week when asked about Colbert’s remark.“I didn’t appreciate that one,” Schwindel said. “I’d like to see him do it.”That’s something we both can agree on. I’d also like to see Colbert pitch for the Cubs. He couldn’t do much worse than the current bunch, and we already have tired of watching Schwindel pitch at the end of lopsided games.Colbert made his one and only appearance at Wrigley Field in September 2016, when he threw out a ceremonial first pitch disguised as a hot dog vendor named Donny Franks. It became a hilarious segment of Colbert’s show a few weeks later.While listening to Colbert talk in the Cubs dugout that afternoon about the many neighborhoods he lived in during his Northwestern and Second City days, you could tell he really enjoyed being on the field. He professed a love for Wrigley Field and recalled going to games to watch some bad Cubs teams in the 1990s.Inviting Colbert back to Wrigley for a pitch-off with Schwindel would seem like a no-brainer for the Cubs marketing department and its trusty sidekick, the Marquee Sports Network. A Colbert-Schwindel matchup not only would give fans something to look forward to during this lost season, it might help them cope with the Cubs’ plight.We could all use a few laughs these days.The current Cubs probably are too young to realize the team once was a staple of late-night talk show jokes. It only made sense based on the organization’s long history of sucking. During a season-opening 14-game losing streak in 1997, manager Jim Riggleman addressed some of the shots Jay Leno and David Letterman took at the Cubs on their late-night talk shows.“No one likes to be the brunt of jokes, the Jay Leno stuff,” Riggleman said. “I haven’t seen it, but I heard about it. But this is the situation we put ourselves in.”Of course, the abuse was merited, even if it was not appreciated.“I’ve never had time for sarcasm,” Riggleman said. “It’s a cheap laugh. It’s very easy for people to use sarcasm. A lot of people use it ... it’s their shtick. There will always be a market for it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”Years later, manager Joe Maddon used sarcasm to great effect with his “Try Not to Suck” slogan in 2016. But not everyone can laugh at themselves the way Maddon did.Talk show hosts changed over the years, and so did the Cubs, who finally ended their championship drought under Maddon in 2016. The Cubs might have thought late-night jokes at their expense were history after the historic World Series win, especially after Anthony Rizzo, David Ross and Dexter Fowler portrayed male strippers on “Saturday Night Live.” Instead of being the punchline, a trio of Cubs gladly twerked on late-night TV for laughs.But now the Cubs have returned to their roots, making them fodder for comedians and talk-show hosts everywhere. And with injuries to Marcus Stroman and Wade Miley, two veteran starters brought in to try to make a rebuilding team respectable, it can only get worse.Ross, the former SNL twerker and “Dancing With the Stars” alum, finds himself in charge of a team rapidly slipping into oblivion. After Monday’s 12-1 loss at Pittsburgh, the Cubs’ June ERA stood at 6.79, more than a run higher than the second worst team — the Washington Nationals at 5.42.Matt Swarmer was scheduled to pitch Tuesday night for a club that has allowed double-digit runs in four of its last nine games, losing by scores of 18-4, 12-5, 19-5 and 12-1. Without a slaughter rule to stop the bleeding, the Cubs are forced to go all nine innings.Chicago Cubs first baseman Frank Schwindel pitches during the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres, June 15, 2022, at Wrigley Field. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)Without even looking up the worst month of pitching in Cubs history, the one that sticks in my mind was June 1999, a standard of futility that defied belief. Under fun-loving pitching coach Marty DeMerritt, the Cubs staff compiled a 6.58 ERA that month, serving up 43 home runs in 27 games.The loss of Kerry Wood to elbow surgery before the season hurt, but the Cubs still had veteran starters with decent track records in Steve Trachsel, Kevin Tapani, Jon Lieber and Terry Mulholland, and a young stud named Kyle Farnsworth. All of them collapsed at the same time, taking a contending team down with them. The ’99 Cubs began the month seven games over .500 and one game out of first place in the National League Central, but ended it at .500, 6½ games back on their way to a 95-loss season.DeMerritt was a pro wrestling fan who believed he could get more out of his pitchers by talking them up as one of the league’s best staffs. The joke was on him.“I came in with my spit and vinegar, saying we were going to do this and do that, because I felt that at the time,” DeMerritt said after being fired along with Riggleman and other coaches. “But as things unraveled, certain things didn’t happen. I guess it’s easier to fire a few than numerous.”Chicago Tribune SportsWeekdaysA daily sports newsletter delivered to your inbox for your morning commute.As Greg Maddux once said, one of the keys to succeeding in the game was knowing which coaches not to listen to. DeMerritt was one of those.Of course, 1999 was during the Steroids Era when hitters ruled. The major-league batting average was .271 with a .434 slugging percentage. Hitters struck out only 16.4% of the time.Baseball is now dominated by pitchers. Entering Tuesday, the league average was .241 with a .392 slugging percentage and a 22% strikeout rate. That makes watching Cubs pitchers struggle a much more onerous task than in ‘99.True to form, the Cubs on Monday sent Adrian Sampson, who tossed 4⅔ scoreless innings Sunday against the Atlanta Braves, down to Triple-A Iowa. The move was made to reduce the staff to the mandated 13 pitchers, and Sampson was deemed expendable for the moment. Ross told reporters in Pittsburgh it was an “extremely difficult” conversation because the decision was not “performance-based.”When you have baseball’s worst staff in June and send down the one guy who has pitched well, something definitely is out of whack.It’s another reason why late-night talk show hosts aren’t laughing with the Cubs, they’re laughing at them.Just like the old days. | Baseball |
Kim & Kanye Communicating & Co-Parenting ... Even Breaking Bread!!! 6/21/2022 1:00 AM PT The deafening silence between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West is slowly becoming audible ... because we've learned the couple is communicating again and even able to attend events together with their kids. As we reported, both mom and dad attended North's basketball game over the weekend ... and while they didn't sit shoulder to shoulder, we're told Kim and Kanye drove to and from the game together with North in the car. The co-parenting didn't stop with North -- sources close to both say Kim and Kanye also attended a family lunch Saturday, following a dance recital for Chicago. Backgrid Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson Spend Time Together with Daughter True When we say it was a family lunch, we mean it ... Kris, Grandma MJ, Kylie, Travis Scott, Khloe and Tristan all grubbed out at Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas. We posted photos of the lunch, but Kim and Kanye were nowhere to be seen, even though we now know they were present. While we're told the relationship's still obviously a work-in-progress. They're able to communicate on issues involving their 4 kids, but that's about it. We're told any talk of dating just doesn't happen. Kim wished Kanye a Happy Father's Day Sunday, sharing sweet words about her ex-hubby with photos of Ye in dad mode. Kanye also spent Father's Day at the family home with Kim and the kids. Considering where Kim and Kanye were just a few months ago -- their progress is game-changing -- Kim has always maintained she wants Kanye to be with their kids as much as possible, provided they work around the children's schedules. Of course, there have been some significant bumps in the road -- but we haven't seen any social media attacks toward Kim or bf Pete Davidson since Ye was suspended from Instagram back in March. | Celebrity |
The NBA rests for no one, not even the champions.
Less than a week after the Warriors won their fourth title in eight years, they’ll select new players for their team in Thursday’s NBA Draft (5 p.m., ESPN).
The Warriors own selections Nos. 28, 51, and 57, the first coming in the first round.
And that’s where our focus lies in the days — no, hours — preceding the draft. The second round is the NBA at its strangest. But the first round is where bad teams become good and good teams become great.
Or, in the case of the Warriors, it’s where they stay great.
There are three ways the Warriors can handle pick No. 28 on Thursday, and there is no right answer.
All I can say is this: Thank goodness I started watching these guys months ago, because this is a strong draft class and the Warriors should have multiple positive options.
Here’s what they could do and some players they could do it with come Thursday: Maximize for the here and now
This means getting a role player — whether that be a backup point guard, a 3-and-D wing, or a big man who is going to provide 15 minutes a night, what matters is that he can contribute this upcoming season and for the remainder of his rookie contract.
Effectively, this is getting a player on the veteran minimum with upside for later.
Last season, the No. 28 pick had a slotted first-year salary of $1.6 million that increases by less than 10 percent by the third year.
For a team that is deep in luxury tax hell like the Warriors, these are the kind of locked-in cost savings that go a long way to building a championship team.
But that pick has to pan out, and that’s anything but a guarantee in the late first round.
There’s no question that Jordan Poole — pick No. 28 in 2019 — has been a hit for the Warriors and a vital part of this championship team, but in his first two seasons, he was one of the worst players in the NBA, spending time in the G League to build confidence.
And with the Warriors likely paying as much as six dollars in luxury tax on every dollar in this contract, yeah, you can bet they’d be interested in immediate returns.
Of course, those are the hardest to find. In 2018, the Warriors thought they had an immediate-impact role player in point guard Jacob Evans, who was also selected at No. 28.
Two years later, he was a toss-in in the Andrew Wiggins trade, as the Warriors wanted to rid themselves of his contract. He’s now playing center (yes, center) for the Santa Cruz Warriors.
Options:
Jake LaRavia • 20-year-old wing • Wake Forest
» An exceptional cutter who can pass, shoot and finish at an NBA level. His strength and smarts will make him a switchable defender and he’s a deft rebounder. He looks tailor-made for the Warriors’ motion offense and a role as a stat-sheet filler that positively affects winning. LaRavia is a hot name right now, so the Warriors might have to keep their fingers crossed that he is still around at No. 28.
Dalen Terry • 19-year-old wing • Arizona
» If Terry is available at No. 28, the Warriors must take him and not think twice about it. He’s not the perfect win-now option — there’s upside to be found with him, no doubt — but the floor is plenty high to go with a high ceiling.
I can’t believe he won’t be a lottery pick, but I’ve been assured that he should be picked in the late first. I must be missing something, because he’s a long wing who shows a high basketball IQ, outstanding passing, and the athleticism to defend on the perimeter from Day 1. The 3-point shot is serviceable in catch-and-shoot situations as well.
Christian Braun • 21-year-old wing • Kansas
» A do-it-all option. He’s not going to be an All-Star, but he won’t lose you games, either. Comes in with polish on his jumper and a nose for the basketball. He can cover a lot of ground and is tremendous around the rim. Plug-and-play depth wing. Play for the future The NBA Draft is a crapshoot — so why not bet big?
While the primary attribute of the draft is upside, there are players who are longer-term projects who stay in the draft longer than you would expect.
And while no one knows if that talent will pan out, the value comes not in the initial contract, but in the rights to keep that player after they blossom.
If they blossom.
The risk is relatively low for most teams. The relative benefits are huge, especially for a team that is looking to remain at the top of the NBA for decades to come.
You can’t do that without stars, so anytime you have a chance to add one — even if it’s a slim chance — you need to go for that. The Warriors can’t add anyone outside of mid-level exceptions and minimum contracts in free agency for a while, so the Draft is the one mechanism to add players that can be part of the team’s young, future core without giving anything up in the process.
Take Poole, or Boston’s Robert Williams (pick No. 27 in 2018), or Pascal Siakam (No. 27 in 2016). All are impact players, worthy of big money, that were grabbed late but took some time to fully actualize (hence their placement in the draft).
Above all, the Warriors model themselves after the Spurs, and San Antonio was better than anyone at drafting talent that, years later, far outperformed their draft position.
This is the Warriors’ chance to be truly Spursy.
There are a few players who might defy the odds and reach that All-Star level in due time, despite being a late first-round pick.
Options:
Nikola Jović • 18-year-old wing • Mega Basket
» A 6-foot-11 wing with strong ball-handling skills and an impressive isolation game, Jović has one of the highest talent ceilings in this class, but at 18, has a few years (at least) before he’ll be able to consistently show it.
Josh Minott • 19-year-old wing • Memphis
» An athlete that’s too good to be hanging out late in the draft, Minott falls because he has a massive developmental curve. Right now he’s just a 6-foot-9 kid with bounce who can finish at the rim with his nearly 7-foot wingspan. Everything else needs years of polishing.
But there’s something about his defense — the ball seems to find him, in a good way, on that side of the court — that hints at elite potential. At the end of the curve could be a prototypical winning wing.
Wendell Moore • 20-year-old wing • Duke
» Moore will come in as a viable team defender from Day 1 and his passing and cutting ability will make him a solid rotation player in the NBA, especially if he’s with a team like the Warriors that values those things more than others.
The upside comes on the offensive side of the court. He’ll be 21 when he starts his rookie season, but his shot has come a long way over the last few years, taking a leap as a junior. Still, it’s still a serious work in progress and the leap in competition could negate his recent success. But if that progress as a shooter can continue at the NBA level — a big ask — he could be much better than a role player in this league.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. • 19-year-old wing • UW-Milwaukee
» Baldwin might have the prettiest jump shot in this class, and that hints at an extremely valuable skill. He was once the No. 1 ranked prospect in his recruiting class. He can dribble, defend, and shows a high basketball IQ at 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan. So why is he hanging around the Warriors’ spot in the draft? Injuries. He had a left ankle injury in high school that didn’t fully heal in his one year playing for his father at Milwaukee. It was part of a disastrous freshman season that plummeted his draft stock.
Had he not gone to college, he likely would have been a top-10 pick last season. Instead, he’s a fringe first-rounder. Did he do NBA GMs a favor, or will one team be a beneficiary of 29 other teams overthinking it? Punt As admirable as the Warriors’ spending has been, there is a bottom to even the deepest pockets. Paying roughly $10 million a season for a late first-round pick might be that limit, as that’s what the Warriors’ luxury tax bill might demand.
Plus, the Warriors, with their run to the championship and the subsequent celebrations, will only have a few days to shift their organizational focus to the draft.
Some teams have spent months — if not a year — focusing on this class.
Now, there’s little doubt that the Dubs will find a few players they like, but any analysis will lack the level of comprehension we saw in 2020 and 2021. Of course, this pick isn’t as important as those, but it could cost just as much.
Forgive me, but using this pick — unless there’s someone who created a love-at-first-sight feeling — seems like bad business. Especially with the team needing to find minutes for James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga, and Moses Moody next season.
The Warriors have two second-round picks (Nos. 51 and 57) and their 2023 first-round pick. They’ll be fine on the talent acquisition front.
Punt the pick by either trading it or using it on a player that can be stashed overseas (meaning the Warriors don’t have to pay him), and maybe move up in the second round to land one of the players targeted at No. 28.
Some second-round options:
Gabe Brown • 22-year-old wing • Michigan State
» The prototypical 3-and-D wing. Nice stroke from the outside, brings energy to every possession, and has some fringe small-ball 5 potential.
Keon Ellis • 22-year-old wing • Alabama
» Shades of Patrick McCaw, if McCaw could shoot.
Hyun-Jung Lee • 21-year-old wing • Davidson
» Lee is an impressive cutter and passer who sees the whole floor and plays with great anticipation. He also is a lights-out catch-and-shoot option. He could be a liability on defense, but his basketball IQ might be enough to mitigate that. | Basketball |
Director Scott Derrickson tells IndieWire he tried to talk Hawke out of the role, but the star quickly made the tricky part his own. Over the course of nearly four decades of acting, Ethan Hawke has done a little bit of everything. One thing he’s never really attempted, however? Playing an unquestionably bad dude. In Scott Derrickson’s “The Black Phone,” Hawke finally goes full villain, taking on the role of “The Grabber,” a prolific kidnapper and murderer who has turned a quiet ’70s-era Denver into his own personal hunting ground.
Based on the Joe Hill short story of the same name, and adapted for the screen by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, the film follows young Finney (newcomer Mason Thames), who is taken by Hawke’s character and must somehow hatch a plan to escape from The Grabber’s (suitably creepy) basement lair. He’s assisted by a mysterious phone, which routinely connects Finney with the voices of The Grabber’s previous victims, all of whom have suffered mightily at the murderer’s hands. Upstairs, the masked madman lurks, plotting increasingly horrifying tricks and tests for his latest victim. The film also reunites Hawke with the team (including Derrickson, Cargill, and producer Jason Blum) behind the 2012 horror hit “Sinister,” which saw Hawke taking on a different kind of scary role, playing a down-and-out author who moves his family into a haunted house. Despite the apparent affection between Derrickson and Hawke, the filmmaker told IndieWire that he and Cargill never wrote their on-screen Grabber expressly for Hawke, and even tried to talk him out of the role when they approached him with it.
“I didn’t write the script for him, I don’t write roles for particular actors,” Derrickson told IndieWire during a recent interview. But after Derrickson and Cargill completed the script and set up the film with Blum and his Blumhouse Productions, the filmmaker reached out to Hawke to float the idea of his “Sinister” star coming on board as The Grabber.
“I called him up, and I said, ‘I have the next movie I’m going to make, it’s with Jason,’ and Jason and Ethan are very close,” Derrickson said. “I said, ‘It’s the villain, and let me try to talk you out of it already. For starters, he’s a pedophile, sadistic killer, and second of all, he always wears a mask, so we don’t really see your face, but other than that, it’s a great role.’ He told me, ‘Look, I don’t really play villains, and it would have to be some real Jack Nicholson and ‘The Shining’ kind of thing for me to do it.'”
Derrickson kept it simple: He asked Hawke to read the script and get back to him. By the next morning, Hawke already had his answer. Moreover, he even seemed to already have the character on lock.
“The next morning I woke up, and there was a voicemail on my phone, and it was Ethan, in the voice of The Grabber reading one of the lines,” the filmmaker said. “And that was it. That was his way of telling me that he was going to do it. It was very exciting.” So, yes, that gravelly, super-creepy Grabber drawl? That’s all Hawke. It’s also exactly what Derrickson was hoping for when he asked the iconic actor to consider the role. “I think that one of the main reasons why I wanted to go to Ethan first is that Ethan has one of the most distinctive-sounding voices of any actor,” Derrickson said. “I don’t think that people really take advantage of how unique his voice is. It’s got a very distinctive tone, but not only that, it has incredible range. He can talk in a very high range very naturally, and he can talk in a very low, menacing, growly range very naturally. He made use of that skillset with The Grabber, and I think you really feel it behind a mask. You feel the light, almost vulnerable things he will say and then the really growly, angry things he’ll say and how he shifts between them so easily. It’s very unnerving.”
And while other actors might have balked at a role that requires them to have their faces covered for the vast majority of their screen time, Hawke seemed to delight in it, using his voice and the rest of his body to convey the different facets of The Grabber. While we never learn much of The Grabber’s backstory, one key element about his non-criminal life informs much of the work: He’s a magician.
“I love the idea that he’s a magician, he’s a performer, so there’s a flamboyance to what he does,” Derrickson said with a laugh. “I think it all ties into the personality.”
A Universal Pictures release, “The Black Phone” hits theaters on Friday, June 24. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
Paris police were aggressive, provocative and prejudiced against Liverpool supporters from the moment they arrived for the Champions League final in Paris last month, a French parliamentary commission heard on Tuesday.Addressing the hearing into events in the French captain on 28 May, Liverpool fans’ representatives described the terror of being attacked by police with tear gas and pepper spray on one hand and gangs of local muggers and pickpockets on the other at the Stade de France before and after their match against Real Madrid. Children as young as six were “distressed and traumatised” and feared for their lives, the cross-party committee of senators was told.The country’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, was accused of lying when he blamed English fans for the chaos and violence outside the match, with Ted Morris, secretary of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association, who was at the match in a wheelchair, calling for Darmanin to apologise and resign.Giving evidence, Morris said Liverpool fans were subject to “shocking treatment” and that it was the fans and not police who had prevented a “major catastrophe”. “The authorities should be ashamed,” said Morris. “They [fans] were treated like animals. They were treated with so much contempt.”Morris, who relayed a series of stories from terrified fans present in Paris, said the unjust accusations against Liverpool supporters were especially injurious as they had opened wounds from the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy. “Mr Darmanin lied and has made our pain and trauma worse. I ask him to have the decency to withdraw his comments and to resign,” he said. “We have known lies for 33 years. To establish the truth today is extremely important for us. Much more important than you can imagine.”Joe Blott, chairman of the Liverpool supporters’ union, Spirit of Shankly, said Liverpool fans had shown exemplary behaviour throughout their team’s run to the final but when they came to Paris were faced with “aggressive” riot police who were provocative and unjustly prejudiced against them from the start. He said police had treated the Liverpool fans as if they “were all hooligans”.“Ninety-seven people were killed at Hillsborough because of a failure of the authorities namely the police. That is the truth and to hear the French authorities repeat the same kind of lies 33 years later in 2022, that that fans were late and had fake tickets and were drunk causes extreme pain and misery among English fans,” Blott said. “It is heartbreaking for Liverpool fans around the world.”Emilio Dumas Kremer, a Franco-Spanish Real Madrid supporter who was at the final, echoed the evidence of Liverpool fans. He described the events around the stadium as a “humiliation” for France and accused the authorities of a lack of security and organisation. He told how French police had stood by as local youths mugged Real fans of telephones, wallets and handbags.“The Liverpool fans were pacifist and correct,” he said. “I don’t understand the accusations of the French authorities … accusing them of things that were not true. My team won but I have a very bad memory of that match that left a very bad image of France.”Senator François-Noël Buffet, overseeing the afternoon committee hearing, made it clear that English fans were not to blame for the chaos at the Stade de France. He thanked the Liverpool representatives for giving evidence and stated it was his belief that “English supporters were not to blame for this incident”.Senator François-Noël Buffet said Liverpool fans were not to blame for the chaos at the Champions League final in May. Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty ImagesRonan Evain, director general of the Football Supporters Europe Association, also blamed police at the match and told the committee Liverpool fans “were treated as we are treated all year round … with threats.” He said there was no other point of contact for fans in Paris apart from anti-riot police. Evain went on to accuse French police behaviour of being “dangerous and dated” and called for a “more modern approach” to policing.The senators on the committee, who visited the Stade de France last week, conclude their inquiry on Wednesday.Earlier in the day, Martin Kallen, director general of Uefa Events, told the committee the decision to hold the Champions League final in Paris – after it had to be moved from St Petersburg following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - did not result from lobbying by France. Kallen said he would have preferred to hold the match at Wembley because it could hold 90,000 spectators, compared with 70,000 in the Stade de France, but the stadium in London was already booked.Kallen disputed claims by Darmanin and Didier Lallement, the Paris police prefect, that between 30,000-40,000 English fans had turned up either without tickets or with fake tickets. Darmanin claimed there had been “a massive, industrial and organised fraud in false tickets”.Kallen said: “We know there were around 2,600 fake tickets that were presented at the turnstiles. Certainly there were several thousand tickets that were false but we cannot say how many for sure. We cannot verify the figures given in France of 30-40,000 false tickets.” He added that Uefa hoped to rely far more on electronic tickets but admitted “it requires a lot of testing to get there”.Kallen said Liverpool had alerted Uefa to the risk of counterfeit tickets in advance, but said the counterfeit tickets were not the only cause of the clear failures in the organisation of the match. “The causes are multiple,” he admitted. “There was the transport strike which changed the flow of supporters. There was the poor reaction of the stewards and the police, the problems of delinquency around the stadium.”Uefa is carrying out its own investigation into events on 28 May. The governing body has appointed the Portuguese sports minister, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, to carry out an independent investigation. Kallen said the investigation would take at least three months and “all will be discussed”. | Soccer |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Former elite marathon runner Mara Yamauchi said on "Fox & Friends First" Tuesday she welcomes the decision by the international swimming governing body to create new guidelines for transgender athletes. "They've (FINA) upheld and enforced fairness for female swimmers and female athletes in the other sports, which we know covers diving, water polo, etc. and I welcome this decision," she said, referring to the International Swimming Federation. LIA THOMAS COMPETITOR TOUTS FINA RESTRICTING TRANSGENDER ATHLETES: ‘STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION’ A logo of the is the international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming, FINA is displayed during the FINA World Championships in Rome on July 25, 2009. (MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images)FINA faced backlash over the new "gender inclusion policy" that was approved Sunday setting the standard for transgender athletes’ participation in the sport.The "gender inclusion policy" will only permit swimmers who transitioned before the age of 12 to compete in women’s events. FINA members voted 71.5% in favor of the new policies. There was also a proposal for a new "open competition policy." The organization said it was setting up "a new working group that will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category."In the 24-page policy released Sunday, FINA spelled out how transgender men and women will be allowed to compete under the new rules.The British former marathoner applauded the decision and said it is "unfair" for biological males to compete against females after Lia Thomas stirred controversy by dominating female NCAA competitions.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPYamauchi emphasized that sports are for everyone and transgender athletes should still be allowed to compete."I think a separate open category is a very good solution. Trans people must and should be welcomed in sports. Sport is excellent for everybody. It's really good for our mental and physical health. Nobody is banning trans people from sport at all. This is a question of categories. So I think FINA's suggestion to have an open category is good. Whether or not trans women will want to compete in that is yet to be seen." Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report Elizabeth Heckman is a digital production assistant with Fox News. | Swimming |
Manny Ramírez enjoyed a delayed honor Monday night at Fenway Park.The former Red Sox star was recognized for his induction into the team’s Hall of Fame, with longtime lineup partner David Ortiz presenting Ramírez with his plaque before Ramírez threw out the first pitch to his former teammate to an enormous ovation. For Ramírez, who hit .312/.411/.588 with 274 homers and 868 RBIs in 7½ seasons with the Red Sox (2001-08), the moment proved deeply moving.“It was awesome,” he said. “I never thought that this thing was going to happen. To come into Boston after all the things that I went through and receiving it this way is unbelievable.“That’s the way they receive you when you come home. This is my first home. I was here in 2000 to 2008 and I’m happy to be back home.“Boston and those fans, they’re the best. It doesn’t matter how bad you do. They always remember you, they always support you.”Get 108 StitchesAn email newsletter about everything baseball from the Globe's Red Sox reporters, in your inbox on weekdays during the season.Manny Ramírez (right) tossed a first pitch to David Ortiz before Monday's Red Sox-Tigers game.Jim Davis/Globe StaffThough Ramírez and Ortiz were both part of this year’s Red Sox Hall of Fame class, Ramírez recognized that he won’t follow his teammate into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. As much as Ramírez is looking forward to attending his friend’s ceremonies in July, he understands that multiple suspensions for the use of performance-enhancing drugs during his career will very likely prevent his election to Cooperstown.Ramírez acknowledged that his exclusion is the product of his own actions — and he suggested that he has come to terms with those transgressions in a way that has allowed him to become a better father and family member.“I know what I did,” said Ramírez. “David did it right. I made some mistakes but that mistake is helping me being a better person and being in the great spot that I’m in right now.“I’d rather give [up] the Hall of Fame than give [up] my family and my kids. That’s me.”Ramírez noted how much he is cherishing the chance to throw batting practice to his son, Manny Ramírez Jr., who is playing with the Brockton Rox of the Futures League. “My family and my kids are going to give me more joy than being in the Hall of Fame,” he said. “Every time I’m watching my kid and throwing BP to my kids, it makes me feel like when I hit a home run off Francisco Rodriguez [in Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS].”Ramírez expressed “a little bit” of regret for forcing his way out of Boston in 2008, when he set in motion a trade in the final guaranteed season of his eight-year, $160 million deal by pushing team traveling secretary Jack McCormick, engaging in other erratic behavior, and demanding that the Red Sox deal him if they wouldn’t immediately guarantee the option years on his contract.With hindsight, Ramírez suggested that he wishes he had remained in Boston longer rather than bouncing among the Dodgers, White Sox, and Rays. He considered that while taking stock of the potential free agency of current Red Sox stars Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers.“Everybody knows it’s a business,” said Ramírez. “They’re not a doctor, going to be a doctor the rest of their life. No, they’re baseball players and their careers are short. All you’ve got to think, how much money do you really need to be happy? Where do you want to be?“Because I bet you [Albert] Pujols, when St. Louis offered him less than Anaheim [after the 2011 season], I bet you [if] he would have known what was going to happen, he would have stayed and taken less money in St. Louis than going to Anaheim.“Everything is going to come down [to] how much money do you need? They’re great players. Everybody knows every cent you get paid. Whatever we do, all we have to do is support them and respect their choices, because it’s a business.”Manny Ramírez (right) poses with David Ortiz (center), D'Angelo Ortiz (front row left), Manny Ramírez Jr. (back row center) and Pedro Martinez Jr. (back row left).Jim Davis/Globe StaffWhile Ramírez made the media rounds, Ortiz sat next to the Red Sox dugout during the game, something he has done on multiple occasions in recent days. Ortiz spent much of the game engaging with Red Sox manager Alex Cora, another former teammate.“At some point, we have to sit David somewhere else, to be honest with you,” joked Cora. “It’s nonstop. It’s not Fort Myers, bro. I love it.”What subjects does Ortiz cover with his in-game banter? Hitting? Pitching? Metaphysics?“Everything,” said Cora. “Pitching and this and that, and at one point he started talking about this thing they did at Fox talking about stuff and pitchers not throwing strikes, and he doesn’t understand how hitters are struggling when they don’t throw strikes. “This is going on for five minutes. I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ Just listening and laughing and giving him seeds so he can stay quiet.”Yet Cora appreciates the opportunity to bring legendary members of the franchise to interact with current members.“When the big boy [Ortiz] is here, it’s awesome,” said Cora. “The hitters love it. He goes into the cage and talks to them.“I haven’t seen Manny in a while. To meet him, I know it means a lot [to the players]. The more the better. I am a big believer that the guys around here, they bring a lot to the equation. “I grew up in an organization where you always had somebody. I grew up in the Dodgers. Maury Wills and [Steve] Garvey and all these guys. You learn from them and you keep getting better.”Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier. | Baseball |
Topline
Beyoncé’s new song “Break My Soul,” which dropped at midnight, is being welcomed by fans as an anti-work anthem for the Great Resignation, encouraging listeners to quit their jobs and rid themselves of stressors in their lives. Beyoncé accepts the Best Rap Performance award for 'Savage' onstage during the 63rd Annual GRAMMY ... [+] Awards at Los Angeles Convention Center on March 14, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images for The Recording Academy Key Facts In the dance tune, Beyoncé sings, “Now I just fell in love/ And I just quit my job,” and “Damn they work me so damn hard…And they work my nerves/ That’s why I cannot sleep at night.” Fans took to social media Tuesday to joke about the song, saying it’s fueling the already-present Great Resignation and the desire to quit their jobs, or to not work harder at their jobs than is required or necessary. “Break My Soul,” which samples Robin’s “Show Me Love” and Big Freedia’s “Explode,” quickly shot to the No. 1 spot on iTunes after being released. Big Number
$450 million. That’s Beyoncé’s estimated net worth, as of June 14, according to Forbes. She recently ranked 61st on Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self Made Women. Key Background Last week, Beyoncé announced her seventh studio album, act i: RENAISSANCE, would drop on July 29. It’s her first solo studio album in six years, since 2016’s Lemonade. Variety reported last week the multi-part album would contain both country and dance songs, like “Break My Soul.” Since Lemonade, Beyoncé has been busy, releasing Everything Is Love with husband Jay-Z in 2018, an album and Netflix special from her Coachella spectacular Homecoming in 2019, and a concept album for the live-action Lion King movie called Lion King: A Gift that same year. She was nominated for an Oscar for her original song “Be Alive” from the movie King Richard. Tangent
Dubbed the Great Resignation, the U.S. saw an unprecedented number of people voluntarily leave their jobs last year, with over 47 million people resigning from their posts. Further Reading
Beyoncé Announces New Album ‘RENAISSANCE’ Will Be Released July 29 (Forbes) Beyoncé Wants You to Release Your Job (The Cut) Beyoncé’s 'Break My Soul' Signals The End Of Grind Culture (Elle UK) | Music |
“You just look for things that make the most sense within your group,” he said. “I think we have to walk a fine line a little bit. I think teams are fragile. I think the way teams work together and operate together are fragile. And I think your identity as a team — when you find one that’s successful, which we did this year on the defensive end of the floor and when we were at our best sharing the ball offensively — those things are fragile.Get Court SenseBounce around the NBA with our Celtics-centric look at the latest happenings on and off the court.“So just to add doesn’t mean that you’re not taking something away from the group. And to change significant pieces in the group doesn’t mean that that might not totally take your identity and shift it in a direction that’s not as successful. And so it’s quite a fine line.”Stevens said the Celtics would look to add pieces where the fit seems ideal, pulling levers with their $6.3 million taxpayer’s mid-level exception, or their trade exceptions. But he stressed that some boost could come from within. This season, for example, Payton Pritchard stepped into a more significant role following some February trades and became an essential bench piece.“I believe in a couple of the guys that didn’t get a chance to play as much, that they will continue to improve and be knocking on that door soon,” Stevens said.Stevens did not single out second-year wing Aaron Nesmith by name, but certainly seemed to be referencing him. After promising moments as a rookie, Nesmith took a step back this season and fell out of the rotation. Still, the team values his hustle and defense and believes he can regain his shooting touch.The trade exceptionsTrade exceptions always sound a bit juicier than they actually are. The exceptions, which expire one year after they are created, allow teams to acquire players without sending out matching salary in return.The Celtics have a collection of them, including three notable ones valued at $17.1 million, $9.7 million, and $6.9 million. The largest exception, which was created when they traded Evan Fournier to the Knicks last summer, expires in late July.“They’re all reasonable amounts that we can take good players in with,” Stevens said, “so you balance that on, OK, what’s the cost that you’re going to have to pay? Are you going to bring somebody in that’s going to add to [your roster]? Not necessarily take away, which you obviously don’t want to do.“So it’s still about being prudent and thoughtful about what the deal is. But we’re going through the whole list and we’re trying to find guys that fit what we need and will fit into how we want to play and how Ime [Udoka] wants to coach and makes it so that this train can take off from the get-go next year.”Stevens is entering his second offseason as the Celtics' president of basketball operations.Michael Reaves/GettyThe Celtics will be a luxury-tax team next season, so even though the exceptions would allow them to trade for a player without being restrained by the salary cap, they’d still have to pay that salary and the extra tax bill it creates. Stevens said that ownership will not hold him back, though.“We’ve got the OK to do whatever we need to do,” he said.Confidence in TatumStevens said he had one message for Jayson Tatum after his frustrating NBA Finals ended.“I just told him to go on vacation,” said Stevens. “Go get some rest. This guy gave us everything he had.”Tatum started in the All-Star Game, was named first-team All-NBA for the first time, and guided the Celtics to the brink of a championship. But his season concluded with a difficult series against the Warriors, and he appeared particularly down about it after the Game 6 loss last Thursday.“I think he would be the first to say that he would like to have some of those moments back,” Stevens said. “But I thought there were other contributing factors to how he played.”Stevens thinks fatigue from a long season, a stagnant offense, and the Warriors’ underrated defense all played a role in Tatum’s struggles.“That’s part of the learning experience about getting to the point where you have a great idea about what it takes to get all the way through,” Stevens said.But he does not want one quiet series to take away from everything the star forward accomplished.“What Jayson and Jaylen [Brown] have done in the playoffs, historically at their ages, is rarefied air,” Stevens said. “I think we’re very cognizant of the fact that even though Jayson would admit he did not play his best series, there’s no chance we’re there without him and without all of his great play all the way through.“I think back to all of the times — Game 6 in Milwaukee was one of the best games I’ve seen an individual play in my time, certainly in person and with the Celtics. Without that performance, we would have had this discussion a month and a half ago.”Stevens said that the 18-21 start to the season probably increased the early workloads of top players such as Tatum, and the wear and tear showed later. A cleaner beginning to next year will be a point of emphasis.Evaluating the coachStevens’s biggest move in this new role last summer was hiring Udoka. There were some early bumps, but like the rest of the team, Udoka found a rhythm and thrived. He finished fourth in the Coach of the Year voting and gained the trust and confidence of his players along the way.“I thought that he found a rhythm in coaching this group that obviously was really good as we went through the regular season and into the playoffs,” said Stevens, “and did a good job of maintaining his competitiveness, but also his perspective and evenness throughout the playoffs.“I’ve told people I’m close to all along, I think his ability to bounce back after the tough losses in the playoffs was really special, and his ability to always stay humble and hungry throughout it all was really special.”First-year coach Ime Udoka (left) earned praise from his boss in the front office.Jim Davis/Globe StaffA clean bill of healthStevens said he did not expect any Celtics to need offseason surgery. Center Robert Williams appeared hobbled at times in the playoffs as he dealt with soreness related to his March knee surgery, but improved noticeably as the Finals progressed.“But he needs to take some time,” Stevens said. “Both our doctors and others that we have consulted with have said the same thing. There’s certainly no risk in being out there. But when it’s over, you need to take a few weeks for it to completely settle down.”Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @adamhimmelsbach. | Basketball |
Tom Mann's fiancée Danielle Hampson shared a string of Instagram posts in the weeks before she died on her wedding day.X Factor star Tom announced the tragic news of his wife-to-be's death on Monday evening, after she died on Saturday June 18, just hours before the couple planned to tie the knot.Dani, who previously had a successful career as a dancer before becoming a mum to the couple's son Bowie eight months ago, last posted on her Instagram account three weeks prior to her death when she shared pictures from the couple's holiday in Sardinia with friends. Last post: Tom Mann's fiancée Danielle Hampson shared a string of Instagram posts in the weeks before she died on her wedding day including snaps from a family break to Sardinia, three weeks before her deathThe photos from the May trip show the couple happily posing with their baby son as well as enjoying drinks and food by the ocean with a group of friends.Another of her final posts was a sweet video showing Tom singing and playing guitar to Bowie as the couple marked six months since his birth. Tom - who was part of the band Stereo Kicks - sings an acoustic version of Cold Heart by Dua Lipa and Elton John in the video to little Bowie, with the proud mum writing alongside the footage: 'Happy 6 months my darling boy. Family moments: Another of her final posts was a sweet video showing Tom singing and playing guitar to Bowie as the couple marked six months since his birth Mother: Tom - who was part of the band Stereo Kicks - sings an acoustic version of Cold Heart by Dua Lipa and Elton John in the video to little Bowie, with the proud mum writing alongside the footage: 'Happy 6 months my darling boy''I played this song almost every day of my 3rd trimester, it was in my labour playlist & it was number 1 the day Bowie was born… determined for it to be 'our song' & for it always remind us of life's good bits.'Dani also shared a poignant message on September 25, 2020 - the date the couple were originally due to marry before the pandemic derailed their plans - which read: 'I can't wait to marry you, but the world has other plans.'Tom, who found fame in the band Stereo Kicks, made the devastating announcement of Dani's death on Monday evening, leading to an outpouring of love from his colleagues in the music industry. Family snaps: Dani last posted on her Instagram account three weeks prior to her death when she shared pictures from the couple's holiday in Sardinia with friends Fun with friends: The photos from the May trip show the couple happily posing with their baby son as well as enjoying drinks and food by the ocean with a group of friends Tragic: Dani is seen in one stunning holiday photo cradling her baby son as she poses by the oceanSingers Lewis Capaldi and Ellie Goulding paid tribute, while Take That star Howard Donald penned a post dedicated to 'super talented' dancer Danielle. The performer worked with a number of big name artists during her successful career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness. Tom had just returned from a holiday with Danielle, 34, who also worked as a PR Executive, in Sardinia last month. Danielle did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown. Shock: Howard Donald and Lewis Capaldi have led tributes to Danielle after she died on SaturdayX Factor judge Simon Cowell also paid tribute on Tuesday saying: 'As a father myself, I simply cannot imagine the heartbreak Tom and his family are going through and will be personally reaching out to him. 'From my family to his, we extend our deepest condolences and all of our love during this tragic time.' Lewis Capaldi commented on Tom's Instagram post: 'Love you brother'. Ellie Goulding wrote: 'I'm thinking of you non stop… You are so strong. Here for you always. Love you xxxx'.Take That star Howard revealed he had worked with Dani on the band's 2017 Wonderland tour, as he wrote on Twitter: 'I'm gutted beyond words that one of our dancers on wonderland has passed away. What a beautiful and super talented dancer she was.'I'm happy to say I danced with her and the uk dance world will be shocked and saddened just like I am.'Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle wrote: 'Sending so much love, light & healing to you, Bowie & everyone who loved Dani!!' Condolences: The star's famous friends reached out to share their support including Lewis Capaldi, Ellie Goulding and Nadine Coyle Mimi Webb penned: 'Tom I'm so so sorry sending all my love to you & thinking of you love you brother x we are with you', while Strictly star HRVY wrote: 'so so so sorry Tom, we all love you thinking of you man.'Tom's old bandmate Barclay Beales said: 'Sending all my love brother so sorry.'Dancer Sarah Lou Richards commented: 'I'm so so sorry Tom. She was so special. Sending all my love and strength to you and little Bowie.'Danielle worked with a number of big name artists during her successful career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness. Dancer: Take That star Howard revealed he had worked with Dani on the band's 2017 Wonderland tour, writing: 'I'm gutted beyond words' (pictured with Danielle during a Take That Strictly Come Dancing performance in 2017)Talented: Danielle worked with a number of big name artists during her career as a dancer. Her last major performance before she became a mum last year was a role in Harry Styles' 2021 music video for his hit Treat People With Kindness Successful career: She also danced on the Spice World 2019 tour (pictured in rehearsals with Geri Halliwell and fellow dancers)Arena performances: Danielle called her time performing alongside the Spice Girls 'a childhood dream I never believed would come true' Heartbreaking: The X Factor star (pictured on the show in 2013) revealed the love of his life and mother of his eighth month old son passed away in the early hours of Saturday - the day of their wedding Who was Dani Hampson? Dani Hampson, from Bolton, was born in 1988 to parents Martin and Janette and had a younger brother called Andrew.The 34-year-old was a professional dancer and performed on tour with the likes of Take That and Little Mix.She shared a photo of herself on Instagram cuddled up to singer Gary Barlow in 2015, captioning the image: 'The boss! Best wrap party ever goes to the three G's, Gary, Marc, and Howard.'As well as performing on BBC One's Strictly and ITV series The Voice, Dani also danced alongside the likes of Robbie Williams and Harry Styles.Dani features in the One Direction singer's video for Treat People With Kindness that also stars Fleabag actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.Writing on Instagram, she said: 'As a 'small' fan of Harry Styles it's an understatement to say that it was a pleasure to be a part of this masterpiece.'Practicing what he preaches and is hands down one of the kindest people I've met, teamed with the effortlessly cool and wonderful Phoebe Waller-Bridge – this really is something I will cherish forever.'Her appearance in the 2021 video marked the end of Dani's career as a dancer, as she announced her retirement from the profession in the same post.She continued: 'To all the dancers I got to share these days with, unknowingly my last as a dancer. You are the sparkle this world needs, and I hope you get to shine again very soon.'In June 2021, Dani and her singer-songwriter fiancé Tom announced they were expecting their first baby together.The engaged couple welcomed son Bowie Andrew Mann in October and said the newborn's arrival had 'changed their lives forever.'Dani wrote: 'We are saturated with a love I didn't know existed and one I will never be able to put into words.'She praised partner Tom adding: 'You are our absolute rock.' She also danced on the Spice World 2019 tour, calling her time performing alongside the Spice Girls 'a childhood dream I never believed would come true.' Emma Bunton paid tribute on Monday, writing on Tom's Instagram post: 'Heartbroken for you. A beautiful soul that will live on. Thinking of you all.'Singer-songwriter Tom shared a photograph of Dani and their eight month old son Bowie as he revealed that he was feeling 'completely broken' but vowed to stay strong for the sake of their young son. Tom had just returned from a holiday with Danielle, 34, who also worked as a PR Executive, in Sardinia last month. Danielle did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown.Tom wrote in his Instagram post: 'I can't believe I am writing these words but my darling Dani - my best friend, my everything and more, the love of my life - passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning, 18th June.'On what was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives ended in irreversible heartbreak.'I feel like I have cried an ocean. We never made it to the alter; or got to say our vows, or dance our first dance, but I know you know that you were my entire world and the best thing that has ever happened to me, Danielle.'I will wear this ring that I was always supposed to wear as a sign of my unconditional love to you.' Tom went on to vow that he would stay strong for his son, penning: 'I am completely broken trying to process this and I honestly don't know where to go from here, but I do know I need to use any strength I can muster for our little boy.'I will not be a mark on the parent that you had already become but I promise I will do my everything to raise Bowie just the way we always wanted. I promise you he will know how amazing his mummy was. I promise to make you so so proud.'The most beautiful person inside and out. The most incredible soul. We have lost such a special person and I am sure we are about to see an abundant outpouring of love that reflects that. 'I will try to find peace in your messages and comments, but right now I am grieving and I will be for a very, very long time.'Tom added: 'My darling Dani, the brightest light in any room, my world is nothing but darkness without you. I will miss you forever.' Tragic: Tom, who found fame in the band Stereo Kicks, made the devastating announcement on Monday evening, leading to an outpouring of love from his colleagues in the music industry Broken: The singer-songwriter - who found fame in the band Stereo Kicks - shared a photograph of Dani and their son Bowie as he revealed that he was feeling 'completely broken' but vowed to stay strong for the sake of their young son Tom wrote in his Instagram post: 'I can't believe I am writing these words but my darling Dani - my best friend, my everything and more, the love of my life - passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning, 18th June' He continued: 'I will wear this ring that I was always supposed to wear as a sign of my unconditional love to you' Tom went on to vow that he would stay strong for his son, penning: 'I am completely broken trying to process this and I honestly don't know where to go from here, but I do know I need to use any strength I can muster for our little boy' Love: They announced their engagement in December 2019, with Tom sharing a gushing post about his 'future wife' after he popped the question in a jazz cafe in LondonThe couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom. They announced their engagement in December 2019, with Tom sharing a gushing post about his 'future wife' after he popped the question in a jazz cafe in London. Tom auditioned for X Factor as a solo artist but was put in Stereo Kicks, which made it to the final of the ITV singing show in 2014.The group consisted of Jake Sims, Chris Leonard, Charlie Jones, Casey Johnson, Barclay Beales, Reece Bibby, and Tom.Tom wrote the band's first single Love Me So and at the time said: 'For me to have written our first single it's a massive honour that it's been chosen and everyone in the band loves it Time with friends: Danielle had celebrated her future wedding with a mini hen do with her girls prior to the big day Tom added: 'My darling Dani, the brightest light in any room, my world is nothing but darkness without you. I will miss you forever.' Loved-up: The couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom He penned: 'I will not be a mark on the parent that you had already become but I promise I will do my everything to raise Bowie just the way we always wanted. I promise you he will know how amazing his mummy was. I promise to make you so so proud''I wrote the single within a day. I can't come back to a song, I have to finish it.'He went on to write songs for acts including JLS, Lewis Capaldi, Becky Hill and Mimi Webb. The group split up in 2015 just 10 months after they were formed on The X Factor.A statement to fans on the eight-piece boy band's Facebook page revealed they decided to go their separate ways after struggling to secure a record deal. Tom said of Danielle: 'The most beautiful person inside and out. The most incredible soul. We have lost such a special person and I am sure we are about to see an abundant outpouring of love that reflects that' The group wrote: 'We all feel the time has come for us to now continue our journeys individually.'We have learnt first-hand just how tough the industry is as an unsigned act. Unfortunately, due to these circumstances, we are no longer able to carry on as a band.'Please understand that there is nothing more that you could have done and that this is a situation completely beyond both your control and ours. We have considered endless ways of how we might try to make this work, but it is logistically impossible for us to continue as Stereo Kicks.'From the bottom of our hearts, we will be forever grateful for all of your hard work, support and love. We can't thank you enough.'The group went on to add that there had been no falling out between the members before they decision to call it a day: 'We still remain the BEST of friends and will continue to support each other in everything we do. Band: Tom auditioned for the X Factor as a solo artist but was put in Stereo Kicks, which made it to the final of X Factor in 2014'Although this is really sad for us, we felt that we wanted to end on a high. You guys have been with us every step of the way and have been the first to hear our news, and we wanted to keep it that way!' The group all performed a solo artists during the auditions stage of The X Factor in 2014, before being merged into a group by the judges.Tom, who was 19-years-old when he auditioned, was a football coach from Southampton who sang the Cyndi Lauper classic, 'Girls Just want to Have Fun' during the Boot Camp stage on the popular ITV show.Former panellist Louis Walsh then put the boys through to the live shows, where they stayed until they were kicked out after a sing-off with Lauren Platt in week eight.Louis fumed at Simon Cowell at the time, insisting he would regret his decision not to save them when they became a huge hit. First post: The couple are believed to have been dating since 2015, when Danielle shared her first Instagram post with Tom Tragedy: The couple had shared pictures of the save the date for the wedding which tragically never took place He said to the Metro: 'It was totally the wrong decision by Simon. The potential for these boys is incredible and time will tell who will do well between these boys and the girl.'I am never going to let him forget it. And when they sell all those records I will say, 'Do you remember when you voted them off?'The group had been tipped to be the next One Direction, but suffered a series of scandals in the early days of their formation.Barclay was the victim of revenge porn at the end of last year after an explicite naked photo was leaked online.Meanwhile, Jake was caught up in two drugs scandals in a month after pictures showing him lying in a daze after allegedly snorting Class A drug ketamine emerged just weeks after he was accused of making several references about smoking drugs online. Celebrity spot: Danielle (pictured with Gary Barlow) did not suffer from any known health problems and her cause of death is unknown | Celebrity |
'X Factor' Star Tom Mann Fiancee Dies Suddenly on Wedding Day ... Simon Cowell Offers Condolences to Family 6/21/2022 6:40 AM PT UPDATE 11:02 AM PT -- Simon Cowell, who served as a judge during Tom's time on the show, just released an emotional statement about Dani's death, telling TMZ, "As a father myself, I simply cannot imagine the heartbreak Tom and his family are going through and will be personally reaching out to him. From my family to his, we extend our deepest condolences and all of our love during this tragic time." "The X Factor" star Tom Mann suffered a horrible tragedy over the weekend ... his fiancee died just hours before their wedding. Dani Hampson, a 34-year-old publicist, had no apparent health issues and the cause of her death has not been revealed. She had posted pics of her and Tom, along with their 8-month-old son Bowie, just days before she died. Tom and Dani were actually supposed to get married Sept. 25, 2020, but the pandemic got in the way. At the time she posted, "I can't wait to marry you, but the world has other plans." Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Dani also had posted a video of Tom -- a member of the group Stereo Kicks -- singing Elton John and Dua Lipa's song, "Cold Heart." She used the song to wish Bowie, "Happy 6 months my darling boy." She wrote, "I played this song almost every day of my 3rd trimester, it was in my labour playlist & it was number 1 the day Bowie was born… determined for it to be "our song" & for it always remind us of life's good bits." Tom announced Dani's death Monday, calling her the "brightest light in any room," adding he will miss her forever. He told his followers, "I can't believe I am writing these words but my darling Dani - my best friend, my everything and more, the love of my life - passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning, 18th June. On what was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives ended in irreversible heartbreak." He went on to say, "I am completely broken trying to process this and I honestly don't know where to go from here, but I do know I need to use any strength I can muster for our little boy." Tom auditioned as a solo singer for 'X Factor' back in 2014, but producers created the group, Stereo Kicks, of which he was a member. Dani was 34. RIP Originally Published -- 6:40 AM PT | Music |
Only the most brutish and cold-hearted bully could resist falling for this utterly charming Danish documentary about a bunch of complicated but lovable nerds who pull together to help one of their number, Kim “Cannon Arm” Kobke, break the world record for playing arcade game Gyruss. Director/narrator Mads Hedegaard embeds himself at Copenhagen’s The Shed, one of the last arcades for the full-size gaming machines that used to be so popular before home computers and consoles decimated the market. Although Hedegaard doesn’t really know much about gaming, he gets people and has a knack for jocular, self-referential film-making and nifty editing tricks, which makes him a good match for this particular tight-knit clique of young men. (There is a purple-haired woman on the edge of the group but oddly the film never goes into much detail about her.)Anyone who has spent time around autistic people will recognise various spectrum traits in some of the bunch, but the abilities and challenges here are enormously varied. Clearly challenged by some forms of social interaction and communication, hero-protagonist Kim is a man of very, very few words – yet he holds down a day job as a lab technician and apparently has four children and one grandchild by a partner or partners unseen. He also has arguably the finest silver mullet, a veritable mane of flowing radiant locks, in northern Europe. One of his friends, big-bearded Michael Dyst, is more loquacious but perhaps less socially adept. He’s published numerous collections of poems and has won awards at local poetry slams; late in the film, he performs one poem where he talks about each of the qualities he hates about himself – autism, having lived with his parents until recently while peers were independent much earlier in life – and slaps himself hard, a scene both moving and hard to watch. Carsten, a cuddly bear of man and Kim’s best friend, studies Bach in intense detail. One of their closest friends, Thomas, killed himself recently but inspired Kim to pursue his dream of breaking the record for Gyruss playing.Hedegaard cheekily recreates the moment Kim decided to pursue this goal by filming him silently eating a banana, one of his favourite foods, for a good 45 seconds of screentime (which feels like a year). That complements the way the film plays with time throughout, marking the hours with graphics to show how long Kim has been playing during the climactic record-attempt, using time-lapse to speed things up elsewhere, and in general musing on the vastness of the universe and the mutability of all things. Sure, that last bit is a little pretentious, but in the most endearing way possible. Lashings of Iron Maiden and classical music on the soundtrack bounce things along nicely. | Video Games |
Image source, Zdena CriscentiImage caption, Mrs Criscenti said her husband Riccardo's death at the age of 45 was "totally unexpected"A widow has said a song released to honour her husband, with help from top musicians, was "absolutely beautiful".Riccardo Criscenti, from Bedfordshire, died from a heart attack in January, shortly after contracting Covid-19.The 45-year-old professional singer and musician had never released a song of his own as he was too much of a "perfectionist", said his wife Zdena.One of his demos recorded in his shed was completed thanks to other music stars and his young daughter Valentina.The track - The Sea Carries Away My Tears - became reality when Martin Sutton of the Songwriting Academy, of which Mr Criscenti was a student, agreed to produce it. He said a "superstar" cast worked on it for two weeks, including Pam Sheyne on backing vocals, who wrote Genie In A Bottle for Christina Aguilera, and Eliza Carthy on fiddle.Mrs Criscenti told Justin Dealey on BBC Three Counties Radio that despite her husband's career, he had not released his own material - even though he wanted his music to be heard.Image source, Zdena CriscentiImage caption, Six-year-old Valentina's voice appears on the song The Sea Carries Away My Tears, along with her fatherHis voice and guitar for the song had been recorded in the studio in his shed at their home in Dunstable, but it never saw the light of day."He always said, 'I just need one song'," said Mrs Criscenti. "It's really difficult to talk about it. Rick spent so much time in his studio, to put stuff together and you can hear his heart and soul in that song. "Every time I listen, I'm just waiting for him to come back from his shed."Image source, Zdena CriscentiImage caption, Mr Criscenti sang for a living and regularly performed in care homes before the pandemicShe said during the pandemic he sang in his garden for his neighbours and "everyone loved it"."That was just Rick, he just tried to cheer up everyone," she said.Mrs Criscenti said without Mr Sutton and his team, the song's release "wouldn't have happened", adding she was "so grateful - it's so powerful and emotional and absolutely beautiful".The track has been released on various online platforms, including Spotify and YouTube.Image source, Zdena CriscentiImage caption, Mrs Criscenti said her husband was "just the best"Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected] Internet LinksThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | Music |
NBA's Montrezl Harrell 'Never' Trafficked Marijuana ... Attorneys Say 6/21/2022 6:23 AM PT Montrezl Harrell's attorneys tell TMZ Sports the NBA player has "never" trafficked marijuana or been a part of "any other illegal activity" ... this despite prosecutors hitting the Charlotte Hornets center with a felony drug charge last month. As we previously reported, Harrell was charged with trafficking less than five pounds of weed after a car he was riding in was pulled over by Kentucky State Police back on May 12. In police documents, officers say the car that Harrell was in had three pounds of marijuana in vacuum-sealed bags inside of a backpack on the back seat. Harrell -- who was not arrested at the scene -- was given a citation ... and then formally charged. If convicted on the count, the 28-year-old could face up to five years behind bars. But, Harrell's attorneys, Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg, tell us they believe Harrell did nothing wrong ... and are confident that will get proven through the legal system. "We want to be clear that Mr. Harrell was not driving the vehicle and following the stop he was only given a ticket to appear in court at a later date for a marijuana-related charge as were all occupants of the vehicle," Harrell's attorneys said. "Mr. Harrell was never placed under arrest. We believe that there are legal and factual issues with this case that will be addressed in court, if that becomes necessary." They continued, "Mr. Harrell, is a devoted family man and a committed professional basketball player and has never been a part of any form of marijuana trafficking or any other illegal activity." Harrell -- an upcoming free agent who averaged 14 points and nearly 7 rebounds per game last season -- is expected to appear in court for a hearing on the matter next month. | Basketball |
Celebrating the red, white and blue will take a lot more green this Fourth of July.
The same inflated costs of that have consumers paying more for, well, pretty much everything these days, could make honoring our nation’s 246th birthday with fireworks a little less Yankee doodle dandy.
“There will be increases due to the escalating cost of freight, fuel, raw materials, and other items that will impact pricing compared to 2021,” said Carson Anderson, president of California market leader TNT Fireworks.
Supplies should be improved from last season, but consumers are urged to shop early for the best selection. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Pyrotechnic-passionate patriots of California are about to learn first-hand that prices of fountains, novelties and smoke items and spinners have gone up, and not just in smoke. While the jump won’t be as dramatic as last season when some items more than doubled in price from the previous year, many returning fireworks, assortments included, will see increases of 15-25%. RELATED: Drones challenge fireworks for Fourth of July in the fire-prone West
The silver lining of this sulfur-infused cloud is that while consumers had to deal with the double whammy of higher prices and lower inventory in 2021, just the former may be an issue this Independence Day.
“Overall, the industry is in a better inventory situation than 2021, but as always, certain items will sell quickly (and) we encourage customers to purchase early,” Anderson said.
State-approved fireworks can only be sold by nonprofit groups where and when legal in California. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Phantom Fireworks, the state’s second-largest fireworks retailer, also is ready for a bang-up Fourth of July.
“Phantom will have adequate supply of consumer fireworks in all categories and price points for the 2022 season,” said Linda Hass, Phantom Fireworks’ California-based operations manager. “That said, we suggest that consumers shop early for the best selection of fireworks.” The companies’ shared advice not to procrastinate on pyrotechnic purchases isn’t without merit. A Monday Fourth of July means that the biggest selling days are over a three-day weekend, and with governments less vocal about discouraging socialization due to COVID-19 fears, we should see a return of block parties and family gatherings. Adding in the likelihood that people will stay home for the long holiday due to sky-high gas prices, the industry is predicting a boon for boom.
“We expect 2022 to exceed the previous year’s demand as the nation is ready to fully celebrate the end of this two-year-long pandemic, and there’s no better way to celebrate our freedom on Independence Day than with the lighting of state-approved fireworks,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.
Thousands of California nonprofits will again be raising funds through fireworks sales for the Fourth of July. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Of course, that’s assuming those legal fireworks are also legally shot off. Sale and use of “safe and sane” fireworks are permitted in 296 California communities; churches, schools, service clubs, youth sports teams and other types of non-profit organizations will sell fireworks out of temporary stands in these “open” communities.
RELATED: 20+ Bay Area Fourth of July fireworks displays
Anyone selling or lighting state-approved fireworks in a “closed” community is breaking the law and subject to severe fines and arrest. Penalties go way up if we’re talking about the variety that explodes, leaves the ground or moves about the ground uncontrollably, and that holds true in open communities as well. Although federally approved, fireworks with those characteristics are illegal in California and their possession can lead to a fine of up to $50,000 as well as prison time for up to one year.
At least 60 percent of illegal fireworks used in California are linked to 13 stores in Nevada, with the town of Pahrump being the chief supplier to Southern California, according to fireworks industry spokesman Dennis Revell. A push is underway for the state Attorney General’s office to enforce the California Health and Safety Code, something Revell said hasn’t happened since Section 12704, which holds these retailers accountable if they facilitate shipments across the western state line, was added to the policy in 2008.
Spectators watch the annual fireworks show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on July 4. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
One way to get a fireworks fix the easy way is to attend a public display. Some of the largest are scheduled on the Monday holiday in cities where consumer fireworks are banned. A sampling: Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl, Grand Park), Long Beach (Rainbow Harbor), Riverside (Ryan Bonaminio Park), Ontario (Westwind Park) and Pasadena (Rose Bowl).
Also planning to light up the skies are the open communities of Pico Riviera (Pico Rivera Sports Arena), Rosemead (Rosemead Park) and, on July 3, Costa Mesa (Orange County Fairgrounds).
Buyer’s Guide
Directing our attention to readers who want to light their own fireworks where and when legal ….
Considering that 2022 will see record-high prices for state-approved fireworks, getting the most bang for your buck has never been more crucial for the budget-conscious wanting to celebrate Independence Day with their own snap, crackle and pop.
Atomic Salsa, available at TNT fireworks stands, makes for a good finale. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Vital, too, are the funds raised by nonprofits through the efforts of volunteers working inside those toasty, unair-conditioned stands for the days leading up to and including the Fourth of July.
What will they be selling? That question raises six more: What’s new? What’s loud? What’s colorful? How long is it? What’s unique? What’s worth the money?
Our annual fireworks buyer’s guide has the answers. Every new firework planned for California this season has been tested for performance, duration, distinctiveness and comparative value. This also goes for last year’s debuting products that due to unprecedented shipping issues were neither reviewable by press time nor widely available during the selling period. Thus, the 2021 freshman class is being treated as new and not part of our list of the highest-rated returning favorites.
Fireworks are listed by price, highest to lowest. (Buy-one-get-one items, or BOGOs, were judged alone; prices shown as doubled since they require a multiple buy.)
Let the sparks fly!
What’s New:
Priced at $109.99, Candy Paint from TNT Fireworks is the years most expensive new fountain. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Candy Paint (TNT), $109.99 — Love the wide spread of sparks and variety of colors, but at this price the fountain needs to be a finale. Even at over 2 minutes, it’s too meh to be that. TNT has fountains with similar effects at half the price. 146 seconds. 3 stars
Atomic Salsa (TNT), $99.99 — Spicy 500-gram fountain impresses with terrific height and titanium crackle that produces extra flash and clatter. Fountain is a rewrap of Centennial XL, a commemorative fountain sold for TNT’s 100th anniversary in 2020. 75 seconds. 3 stars
Iron Eagle from Phantom Fireworks is a rousing fountain, but too brief for the $99.99 buy-one-get-one price. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Iron Eagle Fountain (Phantom), $99.99 (BOGO) — Love the awesome-looking eagle-shaped packaging. Like the performance that includes a loud whistle, patriotic hues and titanium strobes. Displeased with the duration at the price point. 57 seconds. 3 stars
Winning the Best New Finale title in 2022 is Light Symphony from TNT. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Light Symphony (TNT), $79.99 — “Best New Finale” honoree scores with a concerto of effects that builds to a rollicking finale of wide white crackling sparks. Before that is an exposition of palms, fish, titanium crackle, neon green and terrific height. 130 seconds. 5 stars
Ellie (TNT), $70 (BOGO) — Elephant-themed fountain, reincarnated from the newly discontinued Power On fountain (meaning it’s a rewrap), packs a lot of crackling sparks in its trunk. 89 seconds. 4 stars
Large Mouth (TNT), $70 (BOGO) — Five colors erupt within multiple effects, one producing a unique water droplet sound. Cute fishy label and wide-ranging sparks, but too short a duration for the price. 60 seconds. 3 stars
Bella (TNT), $70 (BOGO) — Pretty butterfly-shaped fountain builds in intensity with effects that include crackling sparks and flares. Fleeting, though. 60 seconds. 3 stars
Tentacles (TNT), $70 (BOGO) — A happy, pink octopus squirts not ink, but a fusillade of crackling sparks that grow in diameter and decibels for a thrilling, albeit sub-minute-long performance. 54 seconds. 4 stars
Master Flash Fountain (Phantom), $59.99 — Nice cracking sparks and whizzing colorful fish effect provide a passable performance. 110 seconds. 3 stars
Phantom Fireworks Storm Runner fountain is this years Best of Show runner-up. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Storm Runner Fountain (Phantom), $59.99 — “Best of Show” runner-up wows big time with some of the biggest and brightest crackles and palms seen in a fountain. Climax of a firefly rain shower measured at an unlawful 30 feet in radius is unique and breathtaking. 80 seconds. 5 stars
La Calaca from TNT Fireworks earns Best of Show honors for this seasons buyers guide. (Photo by David Dickstein)
La Calaca (TNT), $49.99 — “Best of Show” winner never lets up on the fun and excitement, from instantaneously deafening and mighty crackling sparks to a flashing skull climax. The theme honors Mexico’s Day of the Dead instead of America’s independence, but who cares? 80 seconds. 5 stars
Bottle of Sparks (TNT), $28.99 (BOGO) — Nice, big sparks, but more impressive than the fleeting performance is the fountain’s cool bottle shape. 20 seconds. 2 stars
Majestic Unicorns (TNT), $24.99 (3 pack) — Relatively quiet trio of cones impresses with long-lasting fish and other effects. Majestic indeed. 43-47 seconds. 4 stars
Mighty Sword (TNT), $10.99 — A sword-shaped handheld emits crackling sparks. Not so mighty, but it’s $2 less and 10 seconds longer than Phantom’s version. 47 seconds. 2 stars
Neon Smoke Balls (Phantom), $3.99 (6 pack) — Each ball produces a pretty, near-fluorescent cloud. 20 seconds. 4 stars
Strobe Sticks (Phantom), $3.99 (10 pack) — One of the better strobe fireworks comes in red and green. 20 seconds each. 4 stars
Unicorn Poop (TNT), $2.10 — Yet another scatological theme based on the vintage and ashy black snakes novelty. 20 seconds. 2 stars
TNT assembles a magnificent seven with its new American Dream Team collection priced at $499.99. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Earning the title of “Best Assortment” is TNT’s rookie sensation American Dream Team ($499). If you’re planning at least four finale-class fountains for your show, this is a wise buy even at five Benjamins. All seven pieces are winners. In order from excellent to very good: Opening Show, Wild Side, Delirium, Atomic Salsa, Wizard Alley, Majestic Momma and Jungle Flower.
Best of the rest
Although it might be a budget-buster, TNT’s Opening Show delivers plenty of shock and awe. (Photo courtesy of TNT)
Opening Show (TNT), $99.99 — Budget permitting, this envy-causing finale is a 500-gram must-have. Count to 100 seconds and back up. Trust us. 130 seconds.
Living the Dream (TNT), $84.99 — Like ordering TNT’s superbly named Wild Side (see above) and saying, “make it a double.” 120 seconds.
Coral Reef (Phantom), $64.99 — Awesome 500-gram fan finale emits radiant colors and clamorous whistles and crackles. Same as TNT’s Delirium ($74.99). 105 seconds.
Pyrotastic by Discount Fireworks Superstore lives up to its name with 12 tubes combining for the maximum-allowed 500 grams. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Pyrotastic (DFS), $60.11 — 12 tubes + 500 grams = 1 memorable performance with diverse effects. 181 seconds.
Fiery Meadow Flower Fountain (Phantom), $59.99 — Combo fountain-wheel features titanium crackles and spinning finale. 68 seconds.
Brew Haha (Phantom), $59.99 — Beer stein-shaped fountain with vibrant colors and a loud opening whistle must be an IPA because it has – get ready – Incredible Pyro Action. Bad joke, great firework. 145 seconds.
Phantom’s Illuminati Triangle is one of the best deals among consumer fireworks, with a running time of more than 3 minutes. (Courtesy of Phantom)
Illuminati Triangle (Phantom), $59.99 — Long-lasting fountain features multi-color pearls, sprays, flying stars and titanium crackle. 184 seconds.
Psychedelic (DFS), $59.65 — Nonstop crackle, ice-white palms, multi-colored showers – crowd-pleasing fan fountain. 96 seconds.
Wild Side (TNT), $45.99 — Like watching the super-charged final half-minute of TNT’s Opening Show for a full minute. No climax because it’s all climax. 60 seconds.
TNT’s Crazy Bug Fountain amazes with a triple swarm effect that produces a unique sound when two of the sequences merge. (Courtesy of TNT)
Crazy Bug Fountain (TNT), $45.99 — Amazes with triple swarm effect. Great crackles, reds, greens and palms. 95 seconds.
Moondance Premier (Phantom), $42.99 — Super-sized version of Phantom’s little Moondance Fountain. 100 seconds.
Red White & Blue Jubilee (Phantom), $42.99 — Patriotically pleasing with white chrysanthemums, and red and bluish fish and pearls. 110 seconds.
TNT Torch (TNT), $39.99 — Shimmering golden stars are reminiscent of cones from the early 1970s. 72 seconds.
The Wicked Wizard fountain by Discount Fireworks Superstore gets points for its height, purple droplets and titanium added for sharper crackles and a brighter white. (Photo by David Dickstein)
Wicked Wizard (DFS), $35.95 — Love the height, purple droplets and titanium added for sharper crackles and brighter white. 74 seconds.
Flower Pot Fountain (Phantom), $32.99 — Low-noise fountain enthralls with multicolored droplets against a near-constant shower of silver glitter. 52 seconds.
War Fountain (Phantom), $32.99 — Colors change with each stage of fiery crackles. 82 seconds.
Retro (DFS), $31.88 — Former “Best in Show” and “Best New Fountain” winner is the state’s most exciting minute-long fountain. 58 seconds.
Serenity (Phantom), $29.99 — Noiseless fountain opens with lovely lava lamp-like lumps and peacefully pleases with seven colors and white chrysanthemums. 59 seconds.
Main Squeeze (TNT), $28.99 — Love the insane sparks at the one-minute mark. 83 seconds.
Whimsy (DFS), $27.23 — Lower-priced twin of TNT’s Ellie. (See above).
Toxic Barrell, with its green sludge effect, is entertaining despite its limited running time. (Courtesy of TNT)
Toxic Barrel (TNT), $19.99 — Green toxic sludge blobs and loud crackles make for pretty poison. 45 seconds.
Flaring Stars Fountain (Phantom), $16.99 — Virtually noiseless beauty featuring swarming fish effect in red, gold and green. 54 seconds.
Phantom Dragon Slayer (Phantom), $12.99 — Solid pick with white, blue and lemon chrysanthemums, rowdy crackles and red stars. 66 seconds.
Crickets (DFS), $3.67 — Best of the under-$5 fountains is loud and colorful. 42 seconds.
For stand locations and additional product information, visit the retailers’ websites: TNT, tntfireworks.com; Phantom, fireworks.com; and Discount Fireworks Superstore, dfsfireworks.com. Check local laws and take all safety measures before buying and lighting. | Festivals |
Tennis Player, Naomi Osaka poses for a photo with LeBron James #23 of the Los Angeles Lakers after the game on April 4, 2019 at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California.Andrew D. Bernstein | National Basketball Association | Getty ImagesFour-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka is launching a media production company in partnership with The SpringHill Company, a media conglomerate created by Lebron James.The production company, called Hana Kuma, will produce scripted and non-fiction content, starting with a New York Times documentary about Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to U.S. Congress, according to a press release. The announcement says Hana Kuma will highlight "empowering" and "culturally specific" stories. "There has been an explosion of creators of color finally being equipped with resources and a hugeplatform," Osaka said in the release. "In the streaming age, content has a more global perspective. You can see this in the popularity of television from Asia, Europe and Latin America that the unique can also be universal. My story is a testament to that as well."The SpringHill Company, founded by NBA star James and business partner Maverick Carter, will provide production and strategic resources to Hana Kuma, the release said. Hana Kuma also has partnerships with crypto exchange platform FTX and health platform Modern Health. In May, Osaka launched an athlete representation agency called Evolve. | Tennis |
The Stars officially announced Peter DeBoer as their next head coach on Tuesday afternoon, two days after it was initially reported that he was coming to Dallas.DeBoer, 54, succeeds Rick Bowness as the Stars coach and comes to Dallas after spending parts of three seasons as the head coach of the Golden Knights. He was fired this spring after Vegas missed the playoffs for the first time in its short franchise history.DeBoer has also been the head coach of the Sharks (2015-20), Devils (2011-15) and Panthers (2008-11). Previously, he was an OHL head coach for 13 seasons.The Stars will formally introduce DeBoer as their head coach during a press conference on Wednesday morning at the American Airlines Center.“Over the last few seasons, I have seen firsthand what the Stars are building with a mix of dynamic young players and established leaders,” DeBoer said in a statement. “The chance to become this team’s next head coach was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. I would like to thank Tom Gaglardi and Jim Nill for the chance to help guide this team as we work together to bring another Stanley Cup to Dallas.”DeBoer takes over a team in transition.The Stars have moved away from Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin as their core pieces, and ushered in the era of Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen and Jake Oettinger. They’ve made the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, the best stretch for the franchise since the mid-2000s under Dave Tippett. But they were 48-49 in regulation the last two seasons.For five years now, the Stars have struggled to consistently score goals, and the depth behind Dallas’ top lines has been an issue. First, they were too reliant on Benn, Seguin and Alexander Radulov. Now, they’re too dependent on Robertson, Hintz and Joe Pavelski.By most measures, the Stars are stuck in the middle of the NHL. Last year, they were 15th in points percentage (.598). In the last three years, they were 15th in points percentage (.580). In the last five years … they were 15th in points percentage (.573).The power play ranked 11th last season; the penalty kill, 19th. They allowed more shot attempts, shots on goal and goals than they generated at 5 on 5 last season. They outpaced their opponents in 5-on-5 scoring chances, high-danger chanced and expected goals.DeBoer will also be responsible for nurturing the next generation of Stars standouts. Top prospect Wyatt Johnston has a chance to make the NHL roster in the fall. Mavrik Bourque will turn pro next season. Logan Stankoven might be a year away, but was just named the WHL’s top player.Not to mention the young players with pro experience that figure to take on a larger role come next season: Thomas Harley, Ty Dellandrea and Jacob Peterson.Still, other issues await DeBoer. He’ll have to dispatch his recent reputation as someone that can’t deal with goaltenders and work with a franchise cornerstone in Oettinger. He’ll have to find a way to get more offense out of struggling forward Denis Gurianov. And of course, he’ll have to squeeze more juice out of Benn and Seguin.DeBoer has twice guided teams to the Stanley Cup Final in his first year of coaching them. He did so in 2012 with the Devils and in 2016 with the Sharks. With Vegas, he advanced to the Western Conference Final in 2020 and the NHL semifinal in 2021.His .566 career points percentage ranks 19th among active NHL coaches, according to Hockey-Reference, just above the man he replaced in Vegas: Gerard Gallant.DeBoer’s hiring signals the end of a month-long coaching search that began with 30-35 candidates, Stars general manager Jim Nill said previously. The Stars fancied themselves an attractive destination for a coach, and one prime potential candidate flew off the board when Bruce Cassidy joined the Golden Knights earlier this month.“Pete brings a wealth of experience to our dressing room, and we’re thrilled to name him our next head coach,” Nill said in a statement. “Every team that he has taken over has not only shown immediate improvement but has been ultra-competitive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He has taken five teams to the Conference Finals, and two of those to the Stanley Cup Final, in his 14 years as a head coach. His resume displays the high standards he sets and his ability to get his team to play up to that level consistently. We’re excited to welcome Pete and his family to Dallas.”DeBoer becomes the fifth head coach under Nill, joining Lindy Ruff, Ken Hitchcock, Jim Montgomery and Bowness.The Stars offseason is about to pick up, with the draft July 7-8 and development camp shortly after that, free agency opens on July 13 with Traverse City and training camp looming in September.+++Related:10 things to know about reported new Stars head coach Peter DeBoerFind more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.Matthew DeFranks. Matt began covering the Stars for SportsDay in 2018-19, and previously covered the Florida Panthers for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He's also covered college football, the Miami Marlins, the Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles Angels for a variety of outlets. He graduated from the University of Notre [email protected] /mdefranks @MDeFranks | Hockey |
John McEnroe hopes that Emma Raducanu will be able to find the right formula to thrive again despite having to grow under the glare of the spotlight.“She’s trying to grow up in front of the world and in front of people,” McEnroe said. “And that can be difficult. It [the 2021 US Open triumph] happened so quickly. I don’t know if anyone could have possibly anticipated this would happen.”Raducanu is continuing her recovery from the side injury she picked up at Nottingham in her first event of the short grass-court swing. She withdrew from her scheduled tournament the following week and has not played since. However, on Monday she trained at Wimbledon.“This is the future of our game. And people are checking to see what part Emma’s going to have in that,” McEnroe said. “And so there’s a high interest level, obviously. So I think it’d be good obviously for her and her family and the sport that she finds something as soon as possible that she feels more relaxed and able to do her thing.”At Wimbledon last year, McEnroe received intense criticism for his punditry following Raducanu’s retirement in the fourth round against Ajla Tomljanovic. In the aftermath of her retirement he suggested that her departure, which was officially described as breathing issues, was pressure-related. The 63-year-old says he would not say anything differently.“I was just giving like an educated guess as to what I thought was happening, based on 45 years of being around the professional game,” he said. “And what it seemed like was happening, which is totally, you know, happens all the time. It’s not like she’s the first person it’s happened to. Maybe it’s the first person it happened to where she was told, for whatever reason, not to continue playing. That may be the difference.”In the wake of Andy Murray’s run to the Stuttgart final, McEnroe expressed his amazement at the level that the Scot has been able to exhibit despite his metal hip. “I know it had to be tough for him in a lot of ways to watch these guys continue to amass records where he basically couldn’t play at all. I’m not a doctor. I’m amazed that he’s moving as well as he is. If you’ve got a metal hip, that would tell me that you wouldn’t move as well, that you would be stiffer, that you couldn’t react as quickly. I just don’t see how it’s even possible.”Wimbledon will be played without ranking points after the ATP and WTA chose to rescind them in response to the All England Club’s ban of Russian and Belarusian players. McEnroe echoed a popular opinion on the tour, stating he opposed both the original decision by Wimbledon and the tours’ response. He also noted the effect it could have on Novak Djokovic.Andy Murray was injured in the 2022 Stuttgart Open final. Photograph: Bernd Wei’brod/AP“This guy has been up against it. Some of it, he made this decision and he’s going to have to live with that. And he seems hellbent on that decision. But to get deported out of Australia, to go to Wimbledon and then you work and then you get no points [if] you win it again and you drop spots in the rankings. It just seems crazy.”Meanwhile the ATP announced on Tuesday that it will trial “off-court” coaching after Wimbledon. It will allow, among other things, coaches to verbally coach their player when they are on the same side of the court. Hand signals will now be permitted at all times. The WTA has adopted similar rules over the past two years.John McEnroe is part of the BBC’s Wimbledon 2022 lineup. Catch all the action across BBC TV, radio and online from Monday 27 June. | Tennis |
Celebrity | 6/21/2022 10:27 AM PT "I have to admit I feel really moved by it all" Kate Bush is blown away by the massive support for her song "Running Up That Hill" nearly four decades after its release. The 63-year-old shared a statement to her website where she reflected on the resurgence of her 1985 track after being featured on the latest season of "Stranger Things." "The Duffer Brothers have created four extraordinary [seasons] of Stranger Things in which the child actors have grown into young adults," Bush said of the show creators Matt and Ross Duffer. Getty David Harbour On Challenges of Being a Stepfather, Protective Relationship with Stranger Things Kids View Story She continued, "In this latest series, the characters are facing many of the same challenges that exist in reality right now. I believe the Duffer Brothers have touched people's hearts in a special way, at a time that's incredibly difficult for everyone, especially younger people." "Running Up That Hill" plays a vital role in this season's plot line with Sadie Sink's character Max using the track to literally save her own life. Getty Millie Bobby Brown and Noah Schnapp Reveal Marriage Pact View Story "By featuring 'Running Up That Hill' in such a positive light - as a talisman for Max (one of the main female characters) - the song has been brought into the emotional arena of her story," Bush stated. "Fear, conflict and the power of love are all around her and her friends." "I salute the Duffer Brothers for their courage - taking this new series into a much more adult and darker place. I want to thank them so much for bringing the song into so many people’s lives," she added. "I'm overwhelmed by the scale of affection and support the song is receiving and it's all happening really fast, as if it's being driven along by a kind of elemental force." After being featured in "Stranger Things," the '80s track has shot up to No.1 in the U.K. and Australia for the first time as well as entered the U.S. Top 5, per Billboard. "I have to admit I feel really moved by it all," she concluded. "Thank you so very much for making the song a No. 1 in such an unexpected way." | Music |
The long-delayed big screen version of the popular Fox animated series has jokes enough to appeal to anyone, even if its plot is a little undercooked. Have no fear: despite churning out more than 200 episodes over 12 seasons, Emmy-nominated animated series “Bob’s Burgers” translates to the big screen with relative ease. The colorful, kitschy look of Loren Bouchard’s Fox hit is delightful in feature format — the film is, quite notably, the first hand-drawn, traditionally animated film theatrically released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in over a decade; the last time that happened was “Winnie the Pooh” in 2011 — and its quippy, high-energy jokes should appeal to a wide audience.
That includes fans both old and new, as “The Bob’s Burger’s Movie” doesn’t require any previous knowledge of the titular burger joint or the wacky Belcher family who runs it to enjoy this first feature, though it certainly can’t hurt. Newbies will get hip to the personalities and pratfalls of the various stars with ease: Bob (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin; all of the show’s voice stars return to their roles for the film) is a worrier, Linda (John Roberts) is perpetually optimistic, eldest daughter Tina (Dan Mintz) is the voice of reason, son Gene (Eugene Mirman) is the silliest, and youngest daughter Louise (Kristen Schaal) is the precocious star of the family. Similarly, writers Bouchard (who co-directed alongside Bernard Derriman) and Nora Smith (the series’ current showrunner) do a fine job of introducing the various supporting characters who round out the film’s nutty cast, including a gruff local detective, bickering food inspectors, Bob’s self-appointed best friend, a criminal-turned-carnie, even a sweet biker from the local gang.
It’s part and parcel of the film’s distinctly open-hearted nature: Welcome to our world, here’s who is in it and don’t worry — we’ll let you know everything to feel caught up (and, hey, if you want to watch the show after the film, we’ll make that easy and fun, too!). As Hollywood becomes ever-obsessed with building out sprawling, complex, and often brain-breaking universes that require significant amounts of watching (Marvel, we’re looking at you), there is something deeply refreshing about watching the first feature version of a series that’s just been renewed for Season 13 and still not feel like you’re missing a trick.
“The Bob’s Burgers Movie”Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
There’s a mystery at the heart of “The Bob’s Burger’s Movie,” one we all (especially the Belchers) need to solve together. Opening six years before the bulk of the film’s action, we’re clued into a dastardly murder that took place at the local Wonder Wharf, located mere yards from the Belchers’ burger joint. When a giant sinkhole opens up in front of Bob’s Burgers, revealing a very dead skeleton, the Belchers’ fate becomes tied up with whoever the hell kicked the bucket nearly a decade ago.
Things are complicated for the Belchers even before the sinkhole appears. Bob and Linda are on the hook for a coming-due loan installment, while the kids have their own personal desperations: Tina has a burgeoning crush (even as a neophyte to the “Bob’s Burgers” world, I somehow still knew the young teen was obsessed with butts), Gene’s obsessed with becoming a rock star, and Louise’s wants to shed her baby-ish persona. Everyone’s got one week to figure out their various problems — that’s when the loan payment is due and when school lets out for the summer — and a giant sinkhole, a dead body, and the arrest of their own landlord (voiced by Kevin Kline) for the murder sure makes happy endings seems damn near impossible. But don’t count out the Belchers.
“The Bob’s Burgers Movie”Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
As Bob and Linda try to pick up some quick cash and the kids set about figuring out who really committed the murder, the film expands into what feels very much like a super-extended episode. Much of show’s charm remains intact, but there are some growing pains in the offing. (The joke, of course, would be that it all feels a bit undercooked.) That extends to subplots that fade in and out and a laggy middle act that keeps some of the Belchers separated for far too long. The film also has more ambitious elements that don’t get their full due, even though they delight whenever they crop back up.
The series often dips into musical elements (in 2017, Sub Pop released an album containing all 107 songs from the first six seasons, including performances by St. Vincent, The National, and Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields) and “The Bob’s Burger’s Movie” includes a show-stopping opener and a wonderfully wacky song-and-dance involving the local carnie population. While the song’s scores recur throughout the feature, Bouchard and Derriman demure from letting the entire thing go big! splashy! musical!, which feels like a missed opportunity to do something really special. (In short: Make an all-musical feature next, you cowards!)
The film is rife with the puns and gags for which the show is known, although some of the film’s best jokes are delivered entirely straight-faced, like when one supporting character randomly shares that he’s never eaten a meal outside before, or the wharf’s celebratory anniversary banner reads, “80 years of this!” It’s a charmer — let’s just put a bit more spice on the next one.
Grade: B
20th Century Studios will release “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” in theaters on Friday, May 27. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
Few things compare to the feeling of being on water—the sound of waves hitting the shore, the feeling of cool mist on your sun-soaked skin. And the best inflatable paddle boards make it easier than ever to enjoy your nearby lakes, rivers and open seas. They’re more compact and lightweight than a kayak or boat, and you can get a full body workout simply by paddling around for a couple of hours. You can use inflatable paddle boards on the ocean, lake, or rivers. getty Of course, inflatable paddle boards look a little different from one brand to the next, but the best ones are stable and easy to maneuver in all types of water. They integrate design features like D-rings and attachment points for gear, and most come with accessories like a pump, repair kit and paddle. Check out our top picks below. Best Inflatable Paddle Board Overall: Blackfin Model X Best Value Inflatable Paddle Board: Body Glove Performer 11-Foot Best Inflatable Paddle Board for the Ocean: iRocker All-Around 11-Foot Best Inflatable Paddle Board for Beginners: Thurso Surf Waterwalker 132 Best Touring Paddle Board: Red Paddle Co Voyager Best High-Performance Inflatable Paddle Board: Infinity Surf Blackfish Air Best Yoga Inflatable Paddle Board: Isle Scout Best Inflatable Paddle Board Overall
The Only Board You’ll Need for Any Paddling Condition Dimensions: 10.5 feet x 35 inches x 6 inches | Max Capacity: 450 pounds | Weight: 26.4 pounds It would be hard to ignore the premium versatility that this board displays. It’s great for nearly everything—from flat water to whitewater, beginner to advanced, and beyond. If you’re looking to make an investment in the best do-it-all board, the Blackfin Model X will check all your boxes. It also serves well as a fishing or touring board because of the impressive weight capacity and sheer number of D-rings (20) and action mounts (8). The carbon rail adds incredible stability and stiffness. One of the best aspects, though, is the package deal: it comes with a full-carbon paddle, high-quality wheeled backpack, repair kit and a double-chamber, triple-action hand pump for rapid inflation. Pros Large carrying capacity Perfect in all conditions Plenty of D-rings and action mounts for gear transport Cons More stability than some advanced riders will need Best Value Inflatable Paddle Board
From Flatwater To Ocean Waves, This Board Is Perfect For The Price Walmart Body Glove Performer 11-Foot Dimensions: 11 foot x 34 inches x 5.4 inches | Max Capacity: 320 pounds | Weight: 24 pounds This lightweight board has a great price-to-performance ratio, and you can regularly find it on sale through various retailers. It’s beginner friendly and stable but also includes more advanced design features, like a nose that cants upwards and tapers near the end. This shaping allows you to keep your SUP board straight as you cut through choppy water with ease. The package includes an aluminum paddle, a backpack carry bag, cell phone dry bag and—new to 2022—both a manual and electric pump. Overall, it’s a great value inflatable paddle board for both beginners looking to dip their toes into the sport and advanced paddlers looking for a fun, maneuverable board that can perform well in all conditions. Pros Lightweight and easy to carry Aggressive, tapered nose tracks well Electric pump drastically reduces inflation time Cons Fins are not removable Best Inflatable SUP For The Ocean
Tackle Wind and Waves With This Open Water Board iRocker iRocker All-Around 11-Foot Dimensions: 11 feet x 32 inches x 6 inches | Max Capacity: 435 pounds | Weight: 26 pounds When the conditions get choppy, grab an ocean-worthy inflatable paddle board. The iRocker All-Around feels stable and solid in the water, but design elements like a tapered nose shape cuts through the waves with ease. The removable, triple-fin setup adds a some stability to an otherwise unsteady endeavor. Whether you’re looking to load it up with gear, surf small waves or bring the kids along, you can trust this board to perform when it needs to. It also comes in a 10-foot version which is great for riders under five-foot-eight-inches. Pros Comes with a full-carbon paddle Over five vibrant colorway options Tapered nose cuts through waves Cons All-around design means it doesn’t excel in any one category Best for beginner to intermediate paddlers The Best Inflatable Paddle Board for Beginners
A Stable Board For Novice Riders Amazon Thurso Surf Waterwalker 132 Dimensions: 11 feet x 32 inches x 6 inches | Max Capacity: 330 pounds | Weight: 26 pounds Beginner riders will want a board with optimal stability, and the Waterwalker provides plenty of confidence-inspiring security as they learn the basics of paddling. The deck pad delivers plenty of grip as you take your first steps on the board, and the robust construction and triple-layer PVC add durability so you’ll get plenty of use for years to come. The minimal design is suited for riders who prefer to relax and paddle, rather than load up their SUP with extra gear. But if you do want to load this board with kids or pets, it can handle the extra weight thanks to a max capacity of 330 pounds. Pros Reinforced deck and sides make it great for beginners Deck pad adds grip and traction Comes in multiple size options to suit every rider Cons Fewer accessory mounts than other all-around options The Best Touring Paddle Board
For Long Trips And Big Gear Hauls Dimensions: 12.5 feet x 32 inches x 5.9 inches | Max Capacity: 330 pounds | Weight: 24 pounds Loading up your gear for a multi-day float? You won’t want to leave without the Voyager from Red Paddle Co. It offers premium touring performance because of its lightweight yet stable design, and the innovative RSS battens along the side of the board keep the weight down while improving its stiffness. While this board touts an array of features, from the cargo tie downs to the grippy deck, perhaps the biggest benefit is its speed and efficiency. On flatwater, you can quickly cruise and pack in the miles so you’ll never need to worry about making it to your campsite before sundown. But even in choppy waters, you’ll enjoy the surprising maneuverability of this massive board. Pros Fun, lightweight and fast Extensive cargo system for hauling gear Five-year warranty is longer than most other companies Cons Does not come with a paddle Not as versatile for everyday use The Best High-Performance Inflatable Paddle Board
Racing Performance From A Super Narrow Design Infinity Surf Infinity Surf Blackfish Air Dimensions: 12.6 feet x 28 inches, 14 feet x 26 inches or 14 feet x 28 inches Inflatable paddle boards aren’t typically known for their high performance and race capabilities, but Infinity Surf is moving the needle with their Blackfish Air. It functions like a hard-sided board thanks to the integrated carbon technology, but still packs away in the included roller bag at the end of a long day. This won’t be the board for everybody, but the innovative design will appeal to paddlers and racers who prioritize lightweight speed over versatility. It’s available in four different sizes that include multiple widths. Pros Carbon fiber fused panel reduces weight and adds stiffness Incredibly fast yet capable in rugged conditions Cons Not beginner-friendly Does not come with a paddle The Best Yoga SUP Board
Premium Stability So You Can Get Your Down Dog On Amazon Isle Scout Stand Up Paddle Board Dimensions: 11 feet x 33 inches x 6 inches | Max Capacity: 315 pounds | Weight: 21 pounds If you’re looking to embrace your inner warrior one, you’ll need a stable board to take your yoga sessions to the water. The Isle Scout provides both space and stability due to its extra-wide design and square tail, so you’ll feel at ease as you float along. Plus, the massive deck pad is grippy and cushy to rival your favorite yoga mat. This board is also insanely lightweight—at only 21 pounds, it is by far the lightest option on our list, making it perfect for the solo rider that may have a long walk down to the waterfront. Pros Stable and wide to move around with ease Velcro strap stores the paddle during yoga sessions Large deck pad creates a sizable platform Cons Not ideal for advanced riders What to Look for When Shopping for an Inflatable Paddle Board
Looking to invest in an inflatable paddle board of your very own? You’ll need to consider a few variables such as board size, shape and added features to help you narrow down your options. Let’s take a look at these in greater detail below.
Board Size And Weight Capacity
Your height and weight will generally dictate the size of your board, but you should also consider whether you intend to carry kids, pets or lots of gear. Be sure to reference the board’s length and width. Shorter boards (under 12 feet) are easier to maneuver, but not great for speed or distance, while longer boards (over 12 feet) are well-suited for touring and added stability. Width, on the other hand, relates mostly to stability: the wider the board, the more sturdy it will be. Wide boards start around 32 inches. Inflatable paddle boards will also designate a max weight capacity (often in the 300-400-pound range), so you should consider how many people (or how much gear) you’ll carry before you purchase a board. Board Shape
The hull and tail shape will affect how the board performs on the water. A flatter, wider hull (known as a planing hull) can be found on great all-arounders that take on most water conditions. When the nose is tapered or V-shaped, this is known as a displacement hull and is designed to move water out of the way. These are great for touring because they cut through water efficiently and allow you to paddle more quickly. Board Features
If you plan to load up your inflatable paddle board with gear for, say, a day on the water or a fishing trip, you should look for a board with plenty of D-rings and gear attachment points. However, if you plan to relax or do yoga on your SUP board, you may want to opt for a more minimal board with a larger deck pad that serves as a platform free from distraction. What Accessories Do I Need To Standup Paddle Board?
You’ll need a few accessories to get on the water safely. To set up your paddle board, you’ll need a pump and carrying case. Most paddle boards come with these accessories, though the quality will vary from one manufacturer to the next. When you’re on the water, you’ll need to carry a personal flotation device (PFD), safety whistle, paddle, leash and repair kit. The Coast Guard requires you to carry a PFD (and whistle) anytime you’re outside of a designated swim area, and children are required to wear a PFD at all times (check your local regulations for more details.) Some inflatable paddle boards come with other accessories like the paddle, leash and repair kit, but you should always check the retailer’s website for more details before you buy. How Do I Get Started With Standup Paddle Boarding?
Paddle boarding is a beginner-friendly activity that has a gentle learning curve, so it’s great for people of all ages and fitness levels. It’s low-impact, and you can either sit or stand on the paddle board when you’re just starting out. Keep in mind that a wide and stable board will help you feel comfortable standing up for the first time on your board. | Swimming |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Many of the world’s most iconic rock and pop music stars — the very symbols of youth in their heyday — have now hit the big 8-Oh!Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson just turned 80 on Monday, June 20. Forever-teen-heartthrob Paul McCartney celebrated his 80th birthday this past Saturday. Many legends who left us too young, of course, would have been on the cusp of 80, too. Guitar God Jimi Hendrix and vocalist extraordinaire Janis Joplin died tragically within weeks of each other in the fall of 1970. Hendrix would be turning 80 in November, Joplin 80 in January. Mama Cass, who died in 1974, would have been 80 right now. FANS CELEBRATE PAUL MCCARTNEY 80TH WITH GLEEFUL ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ AT METLIFE STADIUM CONCERTHere’s a look at eight legends of pop and rock still who recently turned 80 — and who are still making an impact on pop culture today in one way or another. Chubby Checker, 80 (born Oct. 3, 1941)Checker twisted his way into the pop-culture consciousness of America with his infectious dance-party hit "The Twist." It topped the charts in 1960 and then again in 1962. A slightly altered version called "Let’s Twist Again" was a huge hit in 1961. They remain among the greatest classics in pop-music history. "The Twist" was named the biggest chart hit of all time by Billboard in 2018. Checker still performs around the nation riding his tricked-out bus called The Checkerlicious Express. Bob Dylan, 81 (born May 24, 1941)The times began a-changin' for Dylan with the release of his hit album, "The Freewheelin’ Dob Dylan" on May 27, 1963, just three days after his 22nd birthday. His "Rough and Rowdy Ways" tour is currently rolling through California and other western states. The tour will continue through 2024, according to BobDylan.com. BOB DYLAN MUSEUM OPENING IN TULSADylan's music was featured in the recent Broadway hit "Girl from the North Country," which closed early this year amid COVID restrictions. Paul McCartney, 80 (born June 18, 1942)McCartney still leads a band on the run, closing out his American "Got Back" tour last week in front of 60,000 joyous fans at MetLife Stadium in N.J., who serenaded him with "Happy Birthday" two days early. During the tour he honored his late Beatles bandmates John Lennon, who would be 81, and George Harrison, who would be awaiting his 80th birthday in February. McCartney remains a global star today, nearly 60 years after Beatlemania reshaped pop culture. McCartney just announced the release of a box set of his solo albums, spanning his post-Beatles career from the 1970s through today. Paul McCartney performs during his "Got Back" tour on Thursday, June 16, 2022, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (Photo by Christopher Smith/Invision/AP)Smokey Robinson, 82 (born Feb. 19, 1940)Go-gos are still hopping with Smokey’s smooth sounds — nearly 70 years after Smokey Robinson and the Miracles began performing together and 35 years after he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s one of the most influential musicians in history, as both a songwriter and executive with Motown Records in its glory days. Robinson is still on the road today, performing at concert halls across the US and Canada.Ringo Starr, 81 (born July 7, 1940)"It don’t come easy" for rock stars in their 80s. Ringo and His All Starr Band announced last week a revised North American tour, featuring 12 dates that had to be postponed because of coronavirus-related issus.The tour is scheduled to kick off Sept. 5 at Tanglewood in Massachusetts. It ends in October in Mexico City, according to RingoStarr.com.BEATLE RINGO STARR REFLECTS ON SPREADING ‘PEACE AND LOVE’ FOLLOWING THE ‘60S: ’IT WAS PART OF HOW WE FELT'Ringo's All Starr Band lives up to the billing. It includes American singer/songwriter Edgar Winter and Australian hitmaker Colin Hay of Men at Work fame. Recording artist Ringo Starr performs with Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in support of his new album "Give More Love" on Oct. 20, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Denise Truscello/WireImage)Tina Turner, 82 (born Nov. 26, 1939)Turner was a hot commodity in the 1960s, in the 1980s — and is still so in her 80s, though she's claimed she's retired. She's a presence nonetheless. The music world lit up with excitement days ago after learning that Miles Davis in 1985 recorded an instrumental version of "What’s Love Got to Do With It." The song was a smash hit for Turner the year before that, winning three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The dancing diva is also being celebrated on Broadway today with "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical," which is scheduled to close out its COVID-interrupted run in August. Dionne Warwick, 81 (born Dec. 12, 1940)Warwick’s voice has been with us forever and ‘ever, it seems. She placed 56 songs on the Billboard charts from 1962 to 1998, making her one of the most successful singers of all time. Her hits include all-time classics such as "I Say A Little Prayer" in 1967 and "That’s What Friends Are For," which she recorded in 1985 with Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder. It earned a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1986. SINGER DIONNE WARWICK SAYS IT'S ‘ABOUT TIME’ WOMEN IN MUSIC ARE RECOGNIZED FOR ‘DOING INCREDIBLE THINGS’Warwick is today performing in the U.K. on her "She’s Back: One Last Time" tour. Dionne Warwick, who has been selling hit records since the 1960s, is still on the road performing today. (Reuters)Brian Wilson, 80 (born June 20, 1942)Wilson’s bright, sunny music mixing sweet surf sounds with delicious harmonies will forever capture the glory days of Southern California. Wilson turned 80 on Monday but still gets around, ‘round, ‘round. He’s touring America with the 1970s hitmakers Chicago, including for his birthday stop in Kansas City. "To me you’re the only real pop genius in the world and I love you very much," Elton John said from Denmark.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIt was a video card featuring 80th birthday greetings from some of the world’s biggest celebrities. Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital. | Music |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Natela Dzalamidze, a Russian-born tennis player, will be able to compete at Wimbledon after all. The 29-year-old women’s doubles player will be representing Georgia at the All England Club tournament starting next week after previously competing under the natural flag at the French Open last month, according to the WTA website. Natela Dzalamidze in action during the game between Natela Dzalamidze - Kaja Juvan and Aleksandra Krunic - Pattinama Kerkhove in Transylvania Open Doubles Semifinals, in BT Arena Cluj-Napoca, Oct., 30 2021. (Alex Nicodim/NurPhoto via Getty Images)"Player nationality, defined as the flag they play under at professional events, is an agreed process that is governed by the Tours and the ITF (International Tennis Federation)," an All England Club spokeswoman said in an email to the Associated Press over the weekend. Tournament organizers announced back in April that Russian and Belarusian players would be banned from competing at Wimbledon because of the invasion of Ukraine. JOHN MCENROE, TIM HENMAN CLASH OVER WIMBLEDON’S BAN ON RUSSIAN, BELARUSIAN PLAYERS"In the circumstances of such unjustified and unprecedented military aggression, it would be unacceptable for the Russian regime to derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players with The Championships," the statement read. Alicia Barnett (not seen) and Olivia Nicholls (not seen) compete with Natela Dzalamidze and Kamilla Rakhimova (not seen) during semi-final match of TEB BNP Paribas Tennis Championship Istanbul women's clay court tournament at TTF Istanbul Tennis Center in Istanbul, Turkiye on April 23, 2022. (Onur Ãoban/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)"It is therefore our intention, with deep regret, to decline entries from Russian and Belarusian players to The Championships 2022."CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COMThe WTA and ATP professional tennis tours responded to the All England Club’s ban by announcing they would not award ranking points to any players for results at Wimbledon.Novak Djokovic, a six-time Wimbledon champion, spoke out about the decision at the time, saying that while he will always condemn war, politics and sports should never mix. Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates winning his men's Singles Final match against Matteo Berrettini of Italy on Day Thirteen of The Championships - Wimbledon 2021 at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 11, 2021 in London, England. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "I cannot support the decision of Wimbledon. I think it is crazy. When politics interferes with sport, the result is not good."Dzalamidze will play with partner Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia.The Associated Press contributed to this report. Paulina Dedaj is a Digital Reporter for Fox News and Fox Business. Follow Paulina Dedaj on Twitter at @PaulinaDedaj. If you've got a tip, you can email Paulina at [email protected] | Tennis |
Kazan's grandfather Elia Kazan helmed the 1955 adaptation of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" starring James Dean. “Don’t Worry Darling,” there will be plenty more of Florence Pugh on screens soon.
The “Dune: Part Two” star is confirmed to lead a Netflix limited series adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel “East of Eden,” with Zoe Kazan writing and executive producing. Netflix landed the limited series after a competitive bidding war.
Kazan’s grandfather Elia Kazan first adapted “East of Eden” for Warner Bros. in 1955, with James Dean starring in his first major screen role. The Netflix limited series will explore themes of trauma and repair, love and betrayal, duty and free will, as did the original novel and screen adaptation. Pugh will play antiheroine Cathy Ames, portrayed by Jo Van Fleet in the 1955 film. Van Fleet won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her turn in the role; Jane Seymour later took on the part for an ABC miniseries adaptation in 1982 and received a Best Actress Golden Globe. “I fell in love with ‘East of Eden’ when I first read it, in my teens. Since then, adapting Steinbeck’s novel, the great, sprawling, three-generational entirety of it, has been my dream,” Kazan said. “More than anything, I have wanted to give full expression to the novel’s astonishing, singular anti-heroine, Cathy Ames. Florence Pugh is our dream Cathy; I can’t imagine a more thrilling actor to bring this character to life. Writing this limited series over the last two years has been the creative highpoint of my life. I hope that with our partners at Netflix, Anonymous Content, and Endeavor Content, we can do justice to this material, and shed new light on it for a 21st-century audience.” The rest of the “East of Eden” cast has yet to be announced and a director is not yet attached. Anonymous Content and Endeavor Content are co-producing the series as part of a partnership with the streamer.
Kazan previously penned the films “Ruby Sparks” and “Wildlife.” As a writer-actress, Kazan is also portraying journalist Jodi Kantor in #MeToo biopic “She Said” opposite Carey Mulligan as the two New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations.
Meanwhile, Pugh is leading Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling,” in theaters September 23. Pugh is also set to star in “Oppenheimer,” plus writer/director Zach Braff’s “A Good Person.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. | Movies |
A prototype space factory that can produce materials impossible to make on Earth will be on the first rocket to launch from UK soil later this summer.Welsh startup Space Forge will use microgravity and the vacuum of space to make stronger, lighter metal alloys and super-efficient semiconductors.
The company told Sky News that components made in orbit could be in widespread use in as little as five years, in everything from aircraft engines to the electricity grid.To test its plan for bringing materials back to Earth, the company will launch a satellite on a rocket due to lift off from Spaceport Cornwall in September.The spaceport, the first in Europe, is based at Newquay Airport. A Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 will take off from the same runway used by holiday jets, carry a rocket under its wing and release it at 35,000ft.
Andrew Bacon, a co-founder of Space Forge, said the launch will turn the UK into a "true space superpower", with the ability to make and deploy world-leading satellite technology. More on Space NASA prepares to power-down Voyager spacecraft after more than 44 years Scientists discover why Neptune and Uranus are different colours despite similarities The Sun: 'Solar hedgehog' among 'breathtaking' images released by European Space Agency "The price of launch has come down massively," he said. "Typically it used to cost $20,000 (£16,500) per kilogram. These days you can get as low as $1,000 (£830)."There are materials out there worth way more. Nickel-based alloys used in aircraft turbines can cost $100,000 a kg. So the economics (of space manufacturing) start to work because the price of launch has come down so much." Image: A rocket is carried under the wing of an aircraft before being released Although other companies have made small amounts of material and returned them to Earth, Space Forge will be the first to make them in commercial quantities.The whole satellite will be brought down using still-secret technology, then refurbished and relaunched with a new batch of raw materials on board."Being able to launch from your home country is going to make a big difference," said Mr Bacon."If you want to build a reliable, sustainable supply chain based in space, you can't be flying to the other side of the world to source your materials when you want to make something."You want to launch and return here and use those products where they are needed."Read more:China launches three astronauts to complete its new space stationOne giant leap forward for oxygen-hunting robots and power stations of the future Image: Preparation for the launch is entering its final stretch From California to NewquayUp to 10 satellites - some commercial, some military - are expected to be on the first launch, currently scheduled for 8 September.Virgin Orbit's jet Cosmic Girl will take off from Newquay Airport with LauncherOne, a 21-metre rocket, slung under its left wing.Once it's well clear of land and at the correct altitude, the pilot will lift the plane's nose and drop the rocket, which seconds later will ignite its engine and power away on the perfect trajectory for putting satellites into an orbit that passes over the north and south poles.In an exclusive interview, Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, told Sky News that the jet had previously operated thousands of passenger flights across the Atlantic before being repurposed for space transport."We have recycled the airplane, so it's a critical part of our launch infrastructure," he said."It gives the rocket its first step, taking it to 35,000 feet, the better part of Mach 1 (almost the speed of sound), and two thirds of the way through the atmosphere before the rocket has to do any work at all."Newquay will be the company's first launch facility outside California. Image: Pic: SpaceForge UK a 'heavy-hitter' at building small satellitesMr Hart said the UK was attractive because it had the "technology and desire" to be a space nation.Two other traditional "vertical-launch" spaceports are currently seeking approval on the tip of mainland Scotland and on the Shetland Islands.But Spaceport Cornwall says "horizontal-launch", with rockets being carried on aircraft that use a commercial airport, keeps infrastructure and cost to a minimum.Sky News was shown around the building at the airport that is currently being fitted out with a dust-free "clean room" where satellites will be loaded into the rocket.Melissa Thorpe, head of the spaceport, said the UK was a "heavy-hitter" when it came to building small satellites, but until now has had to send them overseas for launch. Podcast Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Subscribe to Storycast 21 now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SpreakerUK-Indian company OneWeb had a launch of 36 internet satellites on a Russian rocket cancelled at the last minute in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.Ms Thorpe said: "We don't have a lot of control over how satellites are launched, who with, where from - and maybe some of the activities that go on in some of those locations."So for us, it's important to help create a sovereign launch capability, with satellites being driven down the road to a spaceport and go up to space in a way that is more transparent."The Spaceport will be a significant boost to the economy of Cornwall, one of the UK's most deprived regions.The company expects to employ 150 people directly, with a further 240 jobs in its supply chain. Several companies are also planning to open facilities around the airport to form a space cluster. | Emerging Technologies |
Microsoft is restricting access to its facial recognition tools, citing societal and racial risks that the artificial intelligence systems could pose.The tech corporation released a 27-page Responsible AI Standard on Tuesday that details the company's goals toward equitable and trustworthy AI. To align with the standard, Microsoft is limiting access to facial recognition tools in Azure Face API, Computer Vision and Video Indexer."We recognize that for AI systems to be trustworthy, they need to be appropriate solutions to the problems they are designed to solve," wrote Natasha Crampton, chief responsible AI officer at Microsoft, in a blog post. She added the company would retire its Azure services that infer "emotional states and identity attributes such as gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair, and makeup." More to come. | AI Policy and Regulations |
After the unusually chilly weekend for June, the nice weather of the past few days is a welcome change. Unfortunately, the same system that kept temperatures under 70 degrees here Saturday and Sunday brought serious cold and snowy weather to the Presidential Range of New Hampshire, including Mount Washington.The weather atop New England’s highest peak, sitting at 6,288 feet above sea level, is often dramatically different than the weather in the valley below. Mount Washington is frequently cited as having the world’s most extreme weather and this isn’t necessarily hyperbole.Although we experience weather here on the ground, that weather is made up of a large interaction between layers of air from the surface all the way up to the tropopause, at roughly 30,000 feet.There are several factors that bring the extreme weather to the summit of Mount Washington. Most notably, the summit is the highest peak in the area and sticks up into the atmosphere without anything to slow down the wind. The lack of trees at this height is included in this equation of extreme weather. Once you get above about 4,200 feet, the landscape changes to mainly rocks, moss and lichens, and small plants.Indeed the flora of Mount Washington is more conducive to the alpine regions of the subarctic.Early this week a fast jet stream was blowing through much of New England including above Mount Washington in New Hampshire.TropicalTibitsWithout anything to slow down the wind, it can blow quite hard and frequently reaches speeds over 100 miles per hour. Mount Washington boasts the second-fastest recorded wind speed on Earth at 231 miles per hour.There’s a scientific principle called the Venturi effect, whereby fluids get squeezed and move faster. Air is a fluid; as the air flows through the Presidential Range, the mountains tend to squeeze it. Since Mount Washington sits above everything else, it feels the Venturi effect most dramatically.There is also an additionally squeezing of the air from above the summit of Mount Washington. Higher up, the tropopause meets the stratosphere. Although the jet stream itself is up much higher, lower-level jet streams can form at around 5,000 feet, producing dramatic wind.For every thousand feet of height, the temperature decreases by roughly 3.5 degrees, so by the time you get to the top of Mount Washington it’s much colder than the valley below. This weekend, the cold air mass and the wind brought wind chills in the single digits along with more than an inch of snowfall.The temperature on the summit of Mount Washington was 20 degrees colder than at the base early Tuesday afternoon.Mount Washington Observatory/MountWashington.orgMount Washington’s position in New Hampshire and frankly much of New England is at the confluence of many different jet stream patterns. This is one of the reasons why the weather in New England is often so variable and why Mount Washington’s weather is particularly extreme.Strong polar and subtropical jet streams and even a fast zonal or west-to-east pattern will often pass through that part of New Hampshire, bringing the often-extreme weather Mount Washington and New England are known for. | Extreme Weather and Cataclysms |
Steph Curry Chugs Pricey Booze ... At Wild Post-Parade Party 6/21/2022 12:08 PM PT The party in the Bay Area clearly didn't stop when the Warriors' parade ended Monday afternoon ... cause Steph Curry hit up a club afterward -- and SLUGGED tequila straight from the bottle!! The NBA Finals MVP was caught on video downing Clase Azul -- some very pricey booze -- in the hours after Golden State's championship celebration ... and he looked like he was having the time of his life. Curry chugged for roughly 10 seconds ... and like a true champ, he barely made a face afterward. The moment was just one of many memorable ones for Curry on Monday -- who, while celebrating his fourth title since 2015, even got a sexy dance sesh in with his wife, Ayesha. STEPH & AYESHA TURNIN IT UP 🥵 pic.twitter.com/VB53GXDQRB— ←_← (@prplganger) June 21, 2022 @prplganger Curry was also spotted holding a bottle of Don Julio 1942 at the after-party -- and check out that footage ... it's clear dude had quite a day! Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Here's to hoping that Tuesday hangover wasn't too bad! | Celebrity |
Elon Musk’s 18-year-old daughter has legally changed her name to dissassociate herself from her billionaire father, legal filings that came to light Monday show. “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in a petition for both a name change and a new birth certificate.Musk’s daughter also changed her gender recognition from male to female after turning 18, the age of consent in California.The documents were filed with the Los Angeles county superior court in Santa Monica in April and came to light recently in online media reports.Her new name was redacted in the online document. Her mother is Justine Wilson, who was married to Elon from 2000 to 2008, when she divorced him. Musk and Wilson have five children together. Musk also has two children with singer Grimes.Wilson said in a tweet on Tuesday she is proud of her daughter. She did not immediately respond to additional request for comment."I had a weird childhood," my 18 year old said to me. "I can't believe I'm as normal-seeming as I am."I said, "I'm very proud of you.""I'm proud of myself!"— Justine Musk (@justinemusk) June 20, 2022
Representatives for Musk’s daughter could not immediately be reached.There were no further details on the rift between Musk’s daughter and her father, the Tesla and SpaceX chief.Musk, the world’s richest man, is engaged in a high-profile, $44 bn bid to take over social media platform Twitter. On Tuesday, Twitter’s board unanimously recommended that shareholders approve the proposed sale, according to a regulatory filing. Musk reiterated his desire to move forward with the acquisition last week during a virtual meeting with Twitter employees, though the CEO has also indicated there are several “unresolved matters” related to the deal.In a statement to the Daily Beast, Musk criticized media outlets for publishing the story about his daughter and her name.“She does not want to be a public figure,” he said. “I think it is important to defend her right to privacy. Please don’t out someone against their will – it’s not right.” Musk did not immediately respond to additional request for comment.A hearing to finalize the name change will take place later this month. | Celebrity |
Ferrari Roma is unveiled during its first world presentation in Rome, Italy, November 14, 2019. REUTERS/Guglielmo MangiapaneRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSummaryCompaniesCompany to unveil new business plan on ThursdayFerrari faces electrification challengeCEO Vigna took job in SeptemberShares outperformed in last 12 monthsMILAN, June 13 (Reuters) - Nine months after taking the top job, Ferrari (RACE.MI) CEO Benedetto Vigna will be expected this week to explain how the carmaker will preserve its cachet - and top tier prices - in a future of electrified cars.The Italian luxury sports carmaker is set to unveil its much awaited business plan on Thursday, heading into the new era of cleaner, silent and electric mobility.That is a particular challenge for the likes of Ferrari, which built its brand over decades by perfecting the roaring and super powerful engines that drive its cars.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comA tech veteran with 26 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Vigna, who started at Ferrari last September, is tasked with marrying innovation with tradition."We should expect a clear focus on technology transition, qualifying the key burning question, namely how the company will evolve in this new environment, not only in terms of products portfolio," said Marco Santino, a partner for automotive practice at management consultants Oliver Wyman.Ferrari has already presented four hybrid models and promised its first full-electric car in 2025.It has said strategic partnerships will be key to accessing new technologies while keeping capital expenditure under control.The company is expected to reveal the relevant areas for new partnerships, which could develop along the lines of an existing tie-up with Britain's Yasa, now part of Mercedes (MBGn.DE), which is supplying technologies for electric drive for Ferrari's hybrid models.The CEO said earlier this year that Ferrari would rely on partners to develop bio and synthetic fuels which could be an additional green option alongside all-electric technology.Margin on adjusted core profitNEW SUVBy announcing its first sport-utility vehicle (SUV), the Purosangue, for the coming months, Ferrari is also moving into a lucrative market segment where competitors such as Lamborghini, part of Volkswagen group (VOWG_p.DE), already operate."A key challenge in the mid-term is to maintain best-in-class profitability while supporting a unique effort in developing new technologies and innovative solutions," Santino said.Besides core technology, Vigna has a number of other areas where he could leave a mark, analysts say, including data and connectivity, intellectual property, Formula One motor sports performance and increased manufacturing complexity.Ferrari's range has risen to nine models, plus limited edition cars, in recent years, with six-, eight-, 12 cylinder, hybrid and soon full electric engines under production.Investors appear to be keeping faith. Shares in the company have been almost flat in the past 12 months, versus an 18% drop for the European auto index (.SXAP) and a 13% drop for the luxury index (.STXLUXP).Rival Aston Martin lost almost 70% over the same period, while Tesla (TSLA.O) shares were among the few to outperform Ferrari.But Vigna has something to prove."A lot is riding on the upcoming Capital Market Day to change valuation parameters for a business which seems to have been on autopilot in recent years and may need a transformational strategy," analysts at Jefferies said.($1 = 0.9510 euros)Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAdditional reporting by Stefano Bernabei
Editing by Keith Weir and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Automotive and Transportation |
Three June days exploring the roads around Rome in a rented Fiat 500: $276. An SUV for a long weekend in July in Orlando: $455. A week in August touring the Algarve in a family-friendly automatic: $845. But costs aren’t the only problem—there simply aren’t any cars to rent in some destinations.What happened? The pandemic, the chip shortage, and the war in Ukraine, for starters. But this isn’t just a short-term shock; the car rental market could be changed forever. That’s likely to mean permanently higher prices, an influx of electric cars, and the appearance of Chinese brands—and perhaps even the rise of peer-to-peer car sharing as a mainstream alternative, if enough people are willing to share their cars with strangers.Things started to break down in early 2020, when lockdowns around the world resulted in the car rental market falling off a cliff. Almost two-thirds of Avis-Budget’s rental business at airports vanished, with revenues company-wide sliding 41 percent year-on-year in 2020. At Europcar, 2020 revenue was down 42 percent, and Hertz's revenue fell 46 percent before it filed for bankruptcy—though it has since restructured and recovered.In response to the mayhem, rental companies sold off their cars. In the UK, fleets were slashed by 30 percent, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), a car rental membership organization. In 2019, Hertz had 700,000 vehicles globally. In the first quarter of 2022, that collapsed to 481,000, according to a company spokesperson. Europcar’s fleet size numbered 293,000 vehicles in the first quarter of 2020 but plunged to 187,200 in 2021.That move made sense as the industry’s two key markets, businesses and vacation travelers, were stuck at home, explains Yusuf Allinson, an analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. “There’s no point holding onto depreciating assets that were not generating money,” he says.But as lockdowns eased and travel recovered, car rental companies couldn’t restock, thanks to a chip shortage that stalled manufacturing, a problem exacerbated by complex supply chains that rely on parts made or assembled in Ukraine. The ensuing shortage of cars in rental lots more than doubled prices. Over Easter, car rental costs were up by an average of 135 percent across Portugal, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Italy, and France versus 2019 levels, according to consumer organization Which. “You’re buying the car for more, you’re fueling it for more, there’s more demand—it’s very logical for prices to increase,” Allinson says.And there’s not much you can do about it. But if you want to avoid eye-watering rental quotes, or finding out you can’t get a car for your family holiday, then it’s best to book ahead. Way ahead. Anyone making last-minute plans may not find that advice particularly useful, but there is another option: car-sharing platforms that let people rent out their vehicles. Services such as Truo and Getaround, or UK-based HiyaCar, could fill the gap in corporate rental fleets and help out car owners hit by high fuel costs. HiyaCar has reported 220 percent growth in rental bookings year-on-year, while earnings for car owners on Truo increased tenfold.Peer-to-peer car-sharing platforms are—cliché though it is—exactly like Airbnb for cars. But, unlike Airbnb, which is currently valued at $78.8 billion, car sharing has yet to take off—despite cars sitting idle 96 percent of the time. But now, with old-fashioned rentals expensive and hard to get hold of, car sharing might finally have its moment.Xavier Collins, vice president of Truo, says that convenience is another benefit of going peer-to-peer, with many people able to find a car a short walk away rather than at a rental lot on the edge of town. That convenience is fine if you’re already in a city, but what about people flying in for a holiday? HiyaCar currently focuses on local renters rather than tourists, saying support for vacationers will hopefully be added this year, but the other two companies do target fliers. Getaround is working to get parking spots for its cars at transport hubs; in France, for example, it has dedicated spots near railway stations.Truo takes it a step further. Cars are delivered directly to the arrivals zone at airports, with the owner either meeting renters with the keys or leaving the vehicle in airport parking, where it’s unlocked via the app.Apps like Truo, Getaround, and HiyaCar have the same benefit as Airbnb and other so-called sharing-economy platforms: They don’t own anything. “The cars on the platforms don’t belong to the company,” says Even Heggernes, a vice president at Getaround Europe. “The shortage of cars occurring everywhere is not something that really affects us.”But that doesn’t mean these platforms have enough vehicles—in the UK, HiyaCar has 2,000 cars for its 150,000 registered users. Truo has 3,000 in the UK, while in the US, Getaround has 160,000. Sharing platforms rely on individuals letting strangers drive off in their car, which requires trust as well as effort to keep vehicles clean, full of petrol, and otherwise ready for renters. It’s a challenging ask, though Heggernes, whose job focuses on encouraging drivers to sign up—says supply has increased due to the cost-of-living crisis, with people seeking ways to make extra cash.HiyaCar has one solution to the continued lack of supply: Top up the system with its own vehicles. With 150,000 registered users, HiyaCar has just 2,000 cars, of which 350 are part of its car club system. They aren’t owned by HiyaCar, but by carmakers, who are guaranteed a minimum income, and the aim is to fill in cars where there isn’t yet enough supply, what the company calls the “cold-start problem.”“We have lots of demand but not enough cars,” says Rob Lamour, cofounder of HiyaCar. “You can’t just launch in an area and suddenly have loads of cars for people to hire; it takes time for it to build up.” Car clubs are also set up in areas without enough vehicles in general, such as central London, where public transport might reduce car ownership but demand for ad hoc rentals remains high.But traditional car rental companies aren’t sitting back and letting upstarts disrupt their market. Even before the pandemic, rental firms were lobbying for tighter regulation of the peer-to-peer market, demanding tighter vehicle checks and restrictions on drop-off zones in airports.Post-pandemic, they’re racing to boost their fleets in a few different ways. “Currently, our global fleet is almost back to pre-crisis levels,” says Tim Vetters, managing director of Sixt UK. But as buying cars remains difficult, the company is also buying from a wider range of manufacturers and keeping cars in its fleet for longer.Hertz’s latest annual report shows the average holding period for a vehicle hit historical highs of 25 months in the Americas and 20 months for the rest of the world, versus 18 months for the Americas and 12 internationally in 2019. Europcar’s latest quarterly results show that the company is turning to Asian car makers and electric vehicles to fill gaps in its fleet.Those tactics are working—but slowly. Europcar’s pre-pandemic fleet of 293,000 vehicles, which fell to 187,200 during 2020, has since rebounded to 243,700. That’s echoed by Avis-Budget, which had a fleet of 660,000 vehicles at the end of 2019; it fell to 533,000 the following year, and rose to 590,000 by the fourth quarter of 2021. Profits are recovering too, though US politicians have expressed concern of possible predatory pricing behavior, with Hertz posting a record quarterly profit after its bankruptcy restructuring.Even without apps and peer-to-peer disruption, the car shortage could mean a lasting shake-up in the rental market—and that means prices are likely to stay high. One reason: The car rental industry was previously able to keep prices down in part because automakers produced too many vehicles, says Toby Poston, director of corporate affairs at BVRLA. Rental companies would either buy excess vehicles in bulk at a discount, selling them off after their rental career ended, or set up buyback schemes with manufacturers, cutting a deal to use a car for a short time before returning it.Both setups favored car rental companies, but the recent shortages mean manufacturers now have the upper hand and no longer have to sell vehicles at a loss. Paired with fuel price inflation, that means car prices will stay high and renting will remain expensive.Whether that gives peer-to-peer car-sharing firms a chance to disrupt the market remains to be seen. But, if they do, they likely won’t just hit revenues at Avis-Budget and Hertz—they could change the whole business of owning a car. While there aren’t enough new cars being made, there isn’t actually a car shortage—we have more than we need parked, underused. In the UK, there are 40 million vehicles on the road; in the US there are 276 million. Rental company fleets are down by hundreds of thousands of vehicles—a difference that could be made up from cars sitting idle on roadsides and in driveways. | Automotive and Transportation |
It will be a case of something old, something new when an unrestricted crowd returns to Royal Ascot on Tuesday, 1,088 days after Cleonte and Silvestre de Sousa eased to a comfortable success in the Queen Alexandra Stakes on the last day of the meeting in 2019.No one could have imagined at the time that it would be the last race in front of a packed grandstand at the Royal meeting for three long years, and the returning fans and fashionistas will find much that is reassuringly familiar.This is, after all, an event that remains fiercely wedded to so many of its traditions, the dress code and the resistance to race-sponsorship to name but two.The course also still thinks it makes sense to run three of the Royal meeting’s eight Group One races by the middle of the afternoon on the opening day. This year, that means Baaeed – probably the best individual racehorse on show all week - and the big sprinting stars from overseas, Golden Pal and Nature Strip, will have been and gone with 32 of the 35 races still to be run. The clash between the fastest turf horses in America and Australia is a brilliant advertisement for Royal Ascot, a race that probably would not happen anywhere else, but as race three on day one, it is unlikely to get the attention it deserves.But as well as the familiar traditions, Ascot racegoers may also find that the last three years have been subtly transformative for the most important and historic Flat meeting of the year.An extra race every afternoon, with the last going off at 6.10pm, is the most obvious change from the six-race cards that we all grew up with, but there are interesting tweaks to the running order too. Two handicaps, the King George V Stakes on Thursday and the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes the following afternoon, have been bumped up the running order to be staged as the second and third races respectively, while the Hampton Court Stakes and the King Edward VII Stakes – the “Ascot Derby”, no less – have been shunted in the opposite direction.A minor change, perhaps, but also one that could have an extremely positive impact on betting turnover, not least via the World Pool system of which Ascot was a founder-member. The rescheduled handicaps will now go off before midnight in Hong Kong, which will help to offset the effects of single-figure fields elsewhere, including a five-runner turnout for the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, the first ever £1m race at the meeting.That field for Wednesday’s feature event has just two British-trained runners, and one each from Ireland, Japan and France, and the lack of runners for such a huge prize must be a cause for some concern.The most significant absentee at this year’s meeting, though, may well be its most devoted racegoer down the years. Having attended every day at Royal Ascot from 1953 to 2019, the Queen has now been in attendance for just one of the last 10, on the final afternoon in 2021. The track itself has yet to hear anything either way – the monarch’s plans are now very much day-to-day – but if the Queen arrives at Ascot at all this week, she is expected to do so by car due to her well-publicised mobility issues. Whether there will be a Royal procession is also unclear.Will the Queen be spotted at Royal Ascot this week? Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The GuardianThe opportunity to be part of a grand royal occasion was one of the meeting’s biggest attractions for more than 60 years, but that now seems to be a thing of the past, and the attendance figures this week will be closely scrutinised for any sign of a drop-off in numbers as a result.Crowds returned to Cheltenham and the Grand National meeting in the spring pretty much at pre-pandemic levels, but other midweek Festivals, including Chester and York’s Dante meeting in May, have suffered significant drops in attendance, not least as the likely effects of the cost-of-living crisis become ever more apparent.Three years ago, the official attendance at Royal Ascot was 292,723, with daily figures ranging from 39,386 on Wednesday to 75,316 on Saturday. A decision to cap the total daily attendance at just over 50,000 – to offer racegoers “an improved experience” – will ensure that this year’s total will fall well short of the 2019 level, but it should still be an interesting measure of whether the demand for the Royal meeting’s unique selling points has survived the last three years. | Other Sports |
Albert Okwuegbunam of the Denver Broncos scores in a 2021 game. NFL owners will score, too, after a ... [+] Walmart heir bought the Broncos for $4.65 billion. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images) Getty Images The purchase of the Denver Broncos by Rob Walton will have a big impact on the values of the other 31 NFL teams. Walton, a Walmart WMT heir, has agreed to pay $4.65 billion, or 9.3 times estimated 2021 revenue. That’s 24% more than Forbes’ valuation of the Broncos last August, when the average value of an NFL franchise was $3.5 billion. But sports bankers say the proper way to estimate the impact of the Broncos deal on the value of the league’s other teams is to look at the next-highest bid to Walton’s, which was about $4 billion. Walton, say people with knowledge of the sale of the Broncos, offered $4.65 billion because he didn’t care to bother with a financial advisor and wanted a quick end to the bidding process. You can do that when you’re worth over $50 billion. Steve Ballmer did pretty much the same thing in 2014 with the Los Angeles Clippers when he paid $2 billion — $500 million more than the next-highest bid for the NBA team. An even better number to use in gauging the impact of the Broncos sale is $4.2 billion, which is about what Walton would’ve needed to pay to win the auction had he not wanted to “Ballmer” the deal. A $4.2 billion value works out to 8.4 times 2021 revenue and is 12% more than Forbes’ $3.75 billion valuation of the team last August. Even with inflation running at over 8%, an across-the-board increase of 12% is nothing to sneeze at. It would put the value of the average NFL team at $3.9 billion — that is, unless the next sale of an NFL team is also “Ballmered.” Or, to update the expression, “Waltoned.” | Other Sports |
Test drive: 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is Ford's first electric truck and has features not found on any other F-Series model. Fox News Autos Editor Gary Gastelu takes it for a spin.NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Building electric vehicles is expensive, which is why their prices are high, and it's mostly about the batteries.Costs have been coming down over the years, but Ford CEO Jim Farley revealed at the Bernstein Conference in early June that the battery pack in a Ford Mustang Mach-E is still around $18,000 to produce.That’s a big part of why the base price is $43,895, not including delivery, while a similarly spacious Ford Escape starts at $28,520.This sort of premium is still the rule when it comes to electric vehicles, which often provide greater power and other features as a bonus, but also have the drawbacks of short driving ranges and long charging times.The $7,500 federal tax credit helps level the playing field, but the annual estimated energy savings of $1,650 the Mach-E offers over the Escape can't close the gap without it for nearly five years. That figure assumes the vehicles are driven the EPA annual estimated average of 15,000 miles at today’s inflated gas prices.THE MOST FUEL EFFICIENT GAS-POWERED VEHICLE MIGHT SURPRISE YOUHowever, a few automakers, including Ford, have aggressively priced some models to the point that they can cover their premiums in energy savings in just the first three years of ownership, if not much sooner.Here are a few of today’s discounted electric rides:Chevrolet Bolt EV The Bolt EV is the lowest-priced electric vehicle in the U.S. (Chevrolet)Chevrolet recently slashed prices on the Bolt EV to $26,595. The subcompact hatchback compares in size to the brand’s Trax SUV, which starts at $22,995. General Motors vehicles no longer qualify for the tax credit, but the Bolt EV costs only $550 to charge at home each year. That’s $2,000 less than the gasoline a Trax will burn through over 15,000 miles, which means an owner will come out ahead in under two years. Even if gas drops to $3.50 per gallon, the payback will still be under three years.Nissan Leaf The Nissan Leaf is just $20,295 after deducting the available $7,500 federal tax credit. (Nissan)The Nissan Leaf used to be the cheapest EV at $28,425, and still is after the tax credit, which brings that down to $20,925. That’s $90 more than a Nissan Sentra, which has a $1,600 higher annual energy cost. It might be tough to drive those 15,000 miles per year in the lowest-priced Leaf, however, which has a range of 149 miles per charge, while a 226-mile model is $5,000 more.Hyundai Kona Electric The Hyundai Kona is offered with gas and electric powertrains. (Hyundai)The Hyundai Kona subcompact SUV comes in gas and battery-powered models that start at $24,795 and $35,295 for the same SEL trim. The Kona Electric has a range of 258 miles per charge and qualifies for the tax credit while saving $1,750 in energy costs annually, which is over half its $3,000 total premium.Ford F-150 Lighting Pro the Ford F-150 Lightning Pro is cheaper and more powerful than the closest gasoline-powered F-150. (Ford)The Ford F-150 Lightning Pro work truck starts at $41,669, which is less than the Mustang Mach-E and includes a four-door body and 452 horsepower all-wheel-drive system. Ford’s cheapest gasoline-powered 4x4 SuperCrew has a 325 hp V6 and a base price of $44,220.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPAlong with being less expensive upfront, the F-150 Lighting has an annual operating cost that’s $2,350 less than the V6 model’s. The major caveat is that this F-150 Lighting trim has a range of only 230 miles between charges, and the lowest-priced version with an extended battery pack that’s rated for 320 miles starts at $74,269. Gary Gastelu is FoxNews.com's Automotive Editor covering the car industry and racing @foxnewsautos | Automotive and Transportation |
Mary Barra, Chair and CEO of General Motors Company speaks at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 2, 2022. REUTERS/Mike BlakeRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comDETROIT, June 13 (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Monday the automaker is "selling every truck we can build" and expanding North American truck-building capacity, even as U.S. gasoline prices hit record highs.Barra made her comments during the automaker's annual shareholder meeting.GM is pursuing a two-track strategy: Investing heavily in electric vehicles for North America, China and other markets, and funding those investments by trying to maximize profits from its North American combustion pickup truck and large SUV lineups.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comBarra said GM is planning higher-priced versions of its Silverado large pickup and its large SUV models.GM and its Detroit rivals Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Stellantis NV (STLA.MI) rely heavily on sales of large pickup trucks and SUVs for global profits. High U.S. gasoline prices in the past have undermined consumer demand for relatively inefficient models.Nominal pump prices hit an average of above $5 a gallon for the first time ever last week, the federal government said Friday.GM is ramping up production of EVs. Barra said the Cadillac Lyriq electric sport utility is sold out through 2023.In response to shareholder questions, Barra said the "clear priority" for using cash generated by its operations is to "accelerate our EV plans." She did not rule out share buybacks or other approaches to returning cash to shareholders.GM still expects to increase production this year by 25-30%, despite continuing pressure on semiconductor supplies globally. Barra said GM is working to redesign vehicles to reduce the number of processors required by 95%.Barra serves as GM's board chair and CEO. GM shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to separate those roles.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting By Joe White;
Editing by Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Automotive and Transportation |
Satellite model is placed on Viasat logo in this picture illustration taken April 4, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) - SpaceX's satellite unit on Monday protested Viasat's proposed acquisition of Inmarsat to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), alleging the rival satellite operator had violated commission rules and should not be granted approval to control another company's assets.SpaceX, which has launched some 2,600 satellites to space for its Starlink internet constellation, called on the FCC to deny satellite internet firm Viasat's request to take over Inmarsat licenses as part of the companies' proposed merger.Reiterating past complaints to the commission, SpaceX argued Viasat is unfit to control Inmarsat's FCC-approved ground terminals because Viasat is allegedly in violation of its own FCC licenses by using a radio frequency band without having met certain FCC conditions.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"Viasat has previously refuted SpaceX's baseless claims at length. There is nothing new here," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "We continue to believe that the transaction will serve the public interest and remain confident that the FCC will reach that same conclusion after reviewing the complete record."SpaceX's senior director for satellite policy, David Goldman, wrote in the filing: "The public interest is not served by giving a company with such blatant disregard for the Commission's rules control over the Inmarsat satellite system."Viasat and SpaceX are fierce competitors in the satellite internet industry and have sparred over various licensing and regulatory issues in the past before the FCC, which allocates shares of radio spectrum to U.S. companies.Viasat in November last year announced its intent to acquire British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat in a deal valued at $7.3 billion in cash, stock and an assumption of debt. The company said it expected to close the deal in the second half of 2022, after shareholder approval and regulatory clearances.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Space Technology |
Subsets and Splits